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Currently, I've had the same phone for over 5 years now. It's the sort of thing where I like it enough. It's not perfect, there's definitely room for improvement, but I figure that will never change so I just keep rolling with it.
About a month ago, my phone started acting erratically. It would stop responding, or acting like I was touching the screen when I wasn't. In Android, in the Developer Settings, there's the option to turn on the pointer location, which revealed that the phone was in fact reacting to touches that weren't there. And it always focused on one specific point. Was it a wayward app? Nope. I uninstalled some lesser-used apps, temporarily uninstalled any that were updated right before this started, force-quit as many as I could, and it still gummed up.
If left alone for about a minute to cool off a bit, or if the screen gets turned off and back on, then it would go back to normal. Initially it was somewhat consistent and predictable, and I would go as far as putting the phone in the fridge for a few minutes to bleed off enough heat for it to be usable again for a bit. Eventually that became less effective. The diagnosis: The LCD display itself was ok but the digitizer was what was going bad. For my particular phone, they're both in the same part. Well, I got 5 years out of mine, which is more than most people get out of these. I started to look at new phones.
Once I got past the sticker shock of new phones (over $800 for flagship models), I was about to get one but the store somehow didn't have the one I picked out. I went back home, looked up how much a new display for mine was, what was involved in replacing it, and spent a whopping $40 for a new display. When that arrived a few days later, I spent maybe 15 minutes replacing the display, much of that using a heat gun to warm up and loosen the adhesive holding the screen on then prying it off. When I put it all back together and turned it on, everything came up as it should and the jumpy pointer issue was gone. Fixed for forty dollars. The only wrinkle was that my phone originally came with some waterproof capabilities, but after destroying the adhesive, it's no longer waterproof. Then again for all the handling my phone has seen, it probably lost that waterproofing long ago.
I'm slightly surprised it worked at all. I was prepared to accept failure in the form of a dead phone and prepared to buy a new one that day. Hence for that reason I'd be highly reluctant to do the same thing for other people. There's too much variation from one model to the next to keep track of, and ruining someone else's phone is not a responsibility I want or need. That said, I can admit the reassembly on mine was less than ideal, as I can see the edge of the glass sticking out a little on one side and not the other, so there's a chance it might just pop out on its own at some point. The automotive equivalent of this would be replacing the engine or gearbox with the intention of getting a little bit more time.
This fix won't last forever, and it's not supposed to. If I get another year, that'll be way more than enough. The idea is to get it working long enough that I can do phone shopping in the future at leisure instead of "I need a new phone NOW because mine's completely dead" (even though I already had 5 years). And I'd be able to do this while not getting enraged at what I'm currently using. As I also tend to keep my old phones for various other purposes, I'd rather have it as "obsolete but usable" instead of "just plain dead". For example, did you know that you can set up one phone as a remote camera for the other over a wi-fi network? Of course you did, because there's an Android app for just about anything.
About a month ago, my phone started acting erratically. It would stop responding, or acting like I was touching the screen when I wasn't. In Android, in the Developer Settings, there's the option to turn on the pointer location, which revealed that the phone was in fact reacting to touches that weren't there. And it always focused on one specific point. Was it a wayward app? Nope. I uninstalled some lesser-used apps, temporarily uninstalled any that were updated right before this started, force-quit as many as I could, and it still gummed up.
If left alone for about a minute to cool off a bit, or if the screen gets turned off and back on, then it would go back to normal. Initially it was somewhat consistent and predictable, and I would go as far as putting the phone in the fridge for a few minutes to bleed off enough heat for it to be usable again for a bit. Eventually that became less effective. The diagnosis: The LCD display itself was ok but the digitizer was what was going bad. For my particular phone, they're both in the same part. Well, I got 5 years out of mine, which is more than most people get out of these. I started to look at new phones.
Once I got past the sticker shock of new phones (over $800 for flagship models), I was about to get one but the store somehow didn't have the one I picked out. I went back home, looked up how much a new display for mine was, what was involved in replacing it, and spent a whopping $40 for a new display. When that arrived a few days later, I spent maybe 15 minutes replacing the display, much of that using a heat gun to warm up and loosen the adhesive holding the screen on then prying it off. When I put it all back together and turned it on, everything came up as it should and the jumpy pointer issue was gone. Fixed for forty dollars. The only wrinkle was that my phone originally came with some waterproof capabilities, but after destroying the adhesive, it's no longer waterproof. Then again for all the handling my phone has seen, it probably lost that waterproofing long ago.
I'm slightly surprised it worked at all. I was prepared to accept failure in the form of a dead phone and prepared to buy a new one that day. Hence for that reason I'd be highly reluctant to do the same thing for other people. There's too much variation from one model to the next to keep track of, and ruining someone else's phone is not a responsibility I want or need. That said, I can admit the reassembly on mine was less than ideal, as I can see the edge of the glass sticking out a little on one side and not the other, so there's a chance it might just pop out on its own at some point. The automotive equivalent of this would be replacing the engine or gearbox with the intention of getting a little bit more time.
This fix won't last forever, and it's not supposed to. If I get another year, that'll be way more than enough. The idea is to get it working long enough that I can do phone shopping in the future at leisure instead of "I need a new phone NOW because mine's completely dead" (even though I already had 5 years). And I'd be able to do this while not getting enraged at what I'm currently using. As I also tend to keep my old phones for various other purposes, I'd rather have it as "obsolete but usable" instead of "just plain dead". For example, did you know that you can set up one phone as a remote camera for the other over a wi-fi network? Of course you did, because there's an Android app for just about anything.
