Shattered phone screen, multiple answers

With smartphone screens getting bigger and better, dropping a phone on concrete floor is often a death sentence for the screen. It’s painful.

As you pick up the shattered remnants of your life from the pavement — that is, the smartphone you just dropped — your mind races as the heart beats triple.

Not only is it unsightly, it can make your phone impossible to use. If you’ve got a cracked screen, first you should assess how bad the damage is.

You might be able to live with small cracks that don’t block your view too much, but larger cracks should probably be dealt with immediately.

If the colours on your screen are abnormal or some pixels are no longer displaying, the damage has gone much further than the glass on top and has affected the LCD panel beneath.

Warranties don’t typically cover accidental damage, so you’re unlikely to get a free repair under warranty for a cracked screen. However, your smartphone’s manufacturer may offer a paid repair instead.

Smartphones are held together with screws and pins, which means in many cases, if you’re handy enough, you can easily fix them, that is, if you can get the right replacement screen. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to helping you repair your own phone.

One site in particular, ifixit.com, offers guides for replacing and fixing nearly every part of a wide variety of smartphones, ranging from the very first iPhone all the way to the iPhone 6 Plus.

But please note — opening up your phone will almost certainly void your warranty and, if you have insurance on your device, you will likely be unable to successfully make a claim if you choose to self-repair.

Therefore, if you’re unsure or don’t want to risk it, talk to your service provider or manufacturer before you try to break open that phone.

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Getting the manufacturer to look at your phone, instead of a third party, is preferable as the firm obviously knows what’s best for its own devices. Many of the phone manufacturers have service centres in Kenya and around the world.

It’s also important to note that some manufacturers void warranty if it is tampered with by a third-party repair outlet.

This would mean that if you have serious problems in the future and try to send it back to the manufacturer, they will refuse to replace it.

If your phone is a bit older, it might not be worth paying for repairs. But don’t throw it away just yet, as you can sell damaged devices to get a bit of money back or give someone who may not mind the cracks. Some technicians are happy to buy broken devices as they can use the spare parts.

There are ways to protect it from breaking when it hits the ground. While plastic screen protectors were quite popular in the past, a recent trend is using tempered glass screen protectors.

But why would you put another layer of glass on top of your screen, which is already protected with a glass layer on top of it?

Simply put, adding a glass protector to your screen won’t change your everyday experience much.

Controlling your phone still feels nice, your screen is protected from scratches and the glass protector almost completely absorbs impact damage should your phone fall.

If you drop your phone, a glass protector is more likely to shatter. However, your screen is very likely to stay intact — and replacing the screen protector is rather inexpensive compared with replacing the entire screen.

Glass protectors usually don’t affect screen sharpness, meaning that you don’t see a difference on your screen when having a protective layer on top of your screen. It’s better to keep your phone safe than be sorry.

Wambugu is an informatics specialist. [email protected] @samwambugu2