Some Time, Boatloads of Patience

Mijn probleem

My wife dropped her phone screen first on concrete, cracking the screen all to pieces with shards of glass sticking up. That's one selfie at the baseball game that will never get posted now. Thanks gravity.

Mijn oplossing

After applying some clear packing tape to the screen, I proceeded to dissemble her Facebook portal device. Separating the screen from the iPhone 5's frame was fairly straightforward. It took a little more pressure than I would've liked due to a slightly dented corner on the aluminum frame. I used the included wedge tool to help it along.

Taking the components apart from the screen/digitizer assembly was far more tedious. Pulling the adhesive away from the home button's contacts was very difficult to do without tearing the ribbon cable. It's not for the faint of hard and unskilled of hands...or people with no patience. After heating the part with a rice-based heating pad (light, moist heat) it came up far easier.

Reassembly of the parts to the new screen/digitizer were pretty tough to line up and keep in place while putting the speaker bracket in place. I literally used a chopstick. Which amused me, knowing they're assembled the first time in China...even though I'm sure they don't use lunch utensils at the Apple factory.

Theres also a tiny little black plastic piece, like a tiny spacer inside. I believe it goes to the light/proximity sensor, but I'm not sure exactly. There is no mention of it in the instructions and it sort of just pops out when you separate the pieces...so you can't tell where or how it went on the old one. Since there's no mention in the instructions, I wonder if it needed to go back in at all? I installed it the best I could with the assumptions I had.

The new screen works well, as well as all the parts that had to be reinstalled. It looks like the original with no defects.

However, she seems to have issues when answering the phone with the screen not locking out....which causes the Mute/Call/Conference/Hang-up issues. Possibly the mystery piece on the proximity sensor?

Overall, good product/results considering.

Took about 1.5hrs since I took my time.

Mijn advies

Advice? Buy the entire screen assembly instead. It's worth the extra $50 in the time and effort it will save. Not to mention the frustration and room for damage. Had I bought the more inclusive kit, it would have been a 10 minute swap. No need to be macho or cheap here....the more inclusive part (w/ screen, home button, camera, speaker, etc.) is a MUCH smarter way to go.

Also, if you aren't mechanically inclined or you have bad eyes (tiny screws) then you should pass on repairing it yourself with this kit. Replacing all the little components use REALLY tiny screws and all components are hard to get lined up at the same time. The included pic shows the point that the simpler swap would take place, but with the simpler kit (screen/digitizer only) it was only the beginning of fat-fingered frustration.