Replacing Nexus 5 screen

speedy_klaxton

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Last night my girlfriend dropped a plate on my 2 week old Nexus 5 and smashed the screen. Brilliant.

I'm going to replace it myself as it's a fair bit cheaper than getting a third party to repair and having watched a few videos it seems easy enough to do as long as you replace the "whole front" of the phone e.g. screen and frame in one go.

Has anyone done this before and is there anything I should take special care of when doing it as the videos make it look straightforward but I'm sure little issues might crop up during the process?!
 

srkmagnus

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Last night my girlfriend dropped a plate on my 2 week old Nexus 5 and smashed the screen. Brilliant.

I'm going to replace it myself as it's a fair bit cheaper than getting a third party to repair and having watched a few videos it seems easy enough to do as long as you replace the "whole front" of the phone e.g. screen and frame in one go.

Has anyone done this before and is there anything I should take special care of when doing it as the videos make it look straightforward but I'm sure little issues might crop up during the process?!
I haven't done this, but after watching a few videos as well, it seems like a really simple process if you are carful and give yourself enough time to get through it.

Let us know how it goes.
 

Shilohcane

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I haven't done it but I was going to buy a Nexus 5 with a broken screen till I watched a lot of youTube videos. Most of the YouTube videos only show you replacing the glass with all three of these components. 1. Glass 2. LCD Screen and 3. Frame. I heard more than one say your chances of replacing just the glass ( $10 Amazon) has a very low chance of success since the LCD and Glass are bonded together that requires a heat gun to separate them. It implied that you have a good chance of damaging the delicate LCD when you separate it from the glass with the heat gun. If you are going to do it yourself then watch a video where he only replaces the glass and not the LCD screen.

If I was going to do it I would get 1. Glass 2. LCD Screen and 3. Frame or at least 1. Glass 2. LCD Screen. Here are you choices from Amazon.

Cheap way to fix the Nexus 5 is sell your broken N5 on Ebay and use the money to buy a new Nexus 5. Or buy a used N5 for about $60 more than the money you got selling the broken N5 and buying a used N5 on Ebay in good shape. That is what I did since the cost of the LCD/Glass replacement will be about the same as you get for selling a broken N5 and buying the replacement parts.

BTW, when you get it fixed buy a 9H Tempered Glass 3mm that goes over your screen which really gives your screen a lot more protection from broken screen if you run naked without a case. (I have a case and my tempered 9H glass is Nillkin Nexus 5.) I have watched YouTube on Nillkin and some clown took a 5 pound sledge hammer to break both the Nillkin and the phone Screen.


 
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JRDroid

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I just did this! Except I went the extra-cheap way and replaced just the screen, not the frame. Took me about 2.5 hours and I had never replaced a phone screen. Doing the screen only wasn't that hard. Just use a hair dryer or heat gun to loosen the adhesive and some adhesive to hold the new screen to the frame. I used plain old super glue, but you can purchase special tape on eBay for just this purpose.

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speedy_klaxton

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I just did this! Except I went the extra-cheap way and replaced just the screen, not the frame. Took me about 2.5 hours and I had never replaced a phone screen. Doing the screen only wasn't that hard. Just use a hair dryer or heat gun to loosen the adhesive and some adhesive to hold the new screen to the frame. I used plain old super glue, but you can purchase special tape on eBay for just this purpose.

Posted via Android Central App

Yeah, I've gone for the full front assembly so won't be having any issues with the screen being bonded together.

I considered just selling it and getting a new one but I sort of wanted to repair it myself....always handy being able to/confident in replacing components etc!
 

speedy_klaxton

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Screen repaired, pretty simple job and everything now works as it should..... Except the proximity sensor.

It always says "near" when using a diagnostic app and due to this whenever I make/receive a call I'm met with a black screen. I've made it so I can use the power button to end calls which helps to a point but now I can't use speaker phone or anything!

I've made sure there's no dust, it doesn't work without screen protector and the light sensor still works.

I'm completely out of ideas.
Has anyone got any suggestions as for how to fix this?
 

Shilohcane

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Screen repaired, pretty simple job and everything now works as it should..... Except the proximity sensor.

It always says "near" when using a diagnostic app and due to this whenever I make/receive a call I'm met with a black screen. I've made it so I can use the power button to end calls which helps to a point but now I can't use speaker phone or anything!

I've made sure there's no dust, it doesn't work without screen protector and the light sensor still works.

I'm completely out of ideas.
Has anyone got any suggestions as for how to fix this?

Good to hear you got the glass replaced. Sorry about the proximity sensor. I am not a expert but maybe you can use the Tasker App to turn on the screen and bypass the proximity sensor with some event. These guys are talking about it here.

[tips] [tasker] dt2w - proximity sensor | Google Nexus 5 | xda-developers
 

speedy_klaxton

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Just to let anyone else who attempts this know I've got the proximity sensor working again. The solution (in my case anyway) was to use two tiny strips of electrical tape and place them horizontally across the sensor with a tiny (1mm at most) gap across the middle. I don't know how accurate you have to be with the size of the gap as it worked first time for me.
 

claraxo

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Just to let anyone else who attempts this know I've got the proximity sensor working again. The solution (in my case anyway) was to use two tiny strips of electrical tape and place them horizontally across the sensor with a tiny (1mm at most) gap across the middle. I don't know how accurate you have to be with the size of the gap as it worked first time for me.
. Ahh so happy I stumbled across this! I dropped my phone and the screen smashed right on the sensor. Thought my phone was broken for sure but this worked! Thanks :D
 

ninou

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Hi! So did you finally get to change only the glass part of the screen? If so, did you watch a video? Could you post the link to it and another to where you bought the glass from? I am desperate to change my broken screen but it is really expensive, at least 80 euros, but my LCD is not damaged so I was hoping I could save it and just getting a new glass.
Thank you!!
 

ninou

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Hi! could you post a link to the video you watched to change only the glass part? I want to go for the cheap version since my LCD still works, only the glass is broken! please help!
 

ninou

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I just did this! Except I went the extra-cheap way and replaced just the screen, not the frame. Took me about 2.5 hours and I had never replaced a phone screen. Doing the screen only wasn't that hard. Just use a hair dryer or heat gun to loosen the adhesive and some adhesive to hold the new screen to the frame. I used plain old super glue, but you can purchase special tape on eBay for just this purpose.

Posted via Android Central App