Is it possible to replace the front glass without replacing the digitizer and LCD? I have saw many, many glass only replacements on eBay for it. I want to do it myself. Is it possible? I know it is possible for the galacy necus but as the 4's LCD is on top i was wondering on bidding for a cracked screen one on ebay and fixing the glass only.
As far as I know, the digitizer and glass are glued together pretty tightly, and it's extraordinarily tough to separate the two without damaging either; plus, if separate them you have the constant worry of dust getting in there. It's usually worth it to just buy a glass+digitizer that are glued together.
Johmama said:
As far as I know, the digitizer and glass are glued together pretty tightly, and it's extraordinarily tough to separate the two without damaging either; plus, if separate them you have the constant worry of dust getting in there. It's usually worth it to just buy a glass+digitizer that are glued together.
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I have seen videos of people seperating them on the galaxy nexus. Also, if the glass is cracked is the digitizer gone too? because the touch doesnt work and its cracked.
I have done a teardown of the Front display before. It is not easy. Yes the Digitizer and LCD are Glued together and I HIGHLY recommend NOT attempting to seperate them without the proper setup to do so. Once they are seperated it takes a SPECIAL glue to glue the Digitizer to the LCD and it has to be aligned correctly or you have to go through the process again. ALSO the LCD+Digitizer display is GLUED to the Bezel with an RTV type substance. I HIGHLY reccommend spending the extra few dollars to get the 3 piece setup. With that the repair is VERY Quick and easy. Takes about 15 min or so. (Half of which is getting the Back cover off without breaking anything).
Ohgami_Ichiro said:
I have done a teardown of the Front display before. It is not easy. Yes the Digitizer and LCD are Glued together and I HIGHLY recommend NOT attempting to seperate them without the proper setup to do so. Once they are seperated it takes a SPECIAL glue to glue the Digitizer to the LCD and it has to be aligned correctly or you have to go through the process again. ALSO the LCD+Digitizer display is GLUED to the Bezel with an RTV type substance. I HIGHLY reccommend spending the extra few dollars to get the 3 piece setup. With that the repair is VERY Quick and easy. Takes about 15 min or so. (Half of which is getting the Back cover off without breaking anything).
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But one question. Is the digitizer broken if the glass is broken and it doenst recognie touches?
EDIT: I will buy a broken nexus 4 off ebay for a few bucks and replace the glass so I want to know if it works if you get it. And there is a 80$ difference between the glass and the 3 piece assembly
jacobreed222 said:
I have seen videos of people seperating them on the galaxy nexus. Also, if the glass is cracked is the digitizer gone too? because the touch doesnt work and its cracked.
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The Top Glass is the Digitizer, the LCD is just that. I think the iPhone4s/5 has the Digitizer integrated into the LCD and I think this is a process that may start to become commonplace as LG announced that they have a LCD Display with Integrated Digitizer in production now.
jacobreed222 said:
But one question. Is the digitizer broken if the glass is broken and it doenst recognie touches?
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Yup You can see the digitited touch grid if you look at in the right angle in bright light.
Ohgami_Ichiro said:
The Top Glass is the Digitizer, the LCD is just that. I think the iPhone4s/5 has the Digitizer integrated into the LCD and I think this is a process that may start to become commonplace as LG announced that they have a LCD Display with Integrated Digitizer in production now.
Yup You can see the digitited touch grid if you look at in the right angle in bright light.
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So youre saying I am out of luck with these:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trk...=nexus+4+glass+replacement&_sacat=0&_from=R40
So why do they sell them anyway? zFor non broken glass?
jacobreed222 said:
So youre saying I am out of luck with these:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trk...=nexus+4+glass+replacement&_sacat=0&_from=R40
So why do they sell them anyway? zFor non broken glass?
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The Glass IS cheap but they do that so they can trick you into wasting your money. It is not an easy process to do. I have done a replacement on both the fron and back and it was very time intensive. (The front I just ordered the 3 piece and it was quick.) For anyone who has had little to no experience doing display repairs I reccommend the 3 Piece set. If you have SOME experience and have GOOD tools get the 2 Piece. ONLY get the Glass Digitizer IF you have Some professional tools and experience. Also the Special Glue for gluing the Digitizer to the LCD is about $20 by itself so that $15 Digitizer works out to ~$35-40 not to mention if you scratch or break the LCD by accident then you end up having to buy that too. I am not trying to be preachy here but trying to give you the REAL risks and obsticles associated with the repair on the N4. It is a VERY easy phone to repair in general EXCEPT the display. Just get the 3 Piece display and sell the broken one on ebay. It will sell because Professionals (who have the right tools) will grab them and refurbish them and then use them for repairs.
Take a look at this Vid, It's for the iPhone 5 but the process is the same for the N4 and N7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbZwypAINYE
Ohgami_Ichiro said:
The Glass IS cheap but they do that so they can trick you into wasting your money. It is not an easy process to do. I have done a replacement on both the fron and back and it was very time intensive. (The front I just ordered the 3 piece and it was quick.) For anyone who has had little to no experience doing display repairs I reccommend the 3 Piece set. If you have SOME experience and have GOOD tools get the 2 Piece. ONLY get the Glass Digitizer IF you have Some professional tools and experience. Also the Special Glue for gluing the Digitizer to the LCD is about $20 by itself so that $15 Digitizer works out to ~$35-40 not to mention if you scratch or break the LCD by accident then you end up having to buy that too. I am not trying to be preachy here but trying to give you the REAL risks and obsticles associated with the repair on the N4. It is a VERY easy phone to repair in general EXCEPT the display. Just get the 3 Piece display and sell the broken one on ebay. It will sell because Professionals (who have the right tools) will grab them and refurbish them and then use them for repairs.
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OK
jacobreed222 said:
OK
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Hey,
I have nexus 4. The outer glass is cracked, but lcd works perfectly. However the touch is unresponsive. If i buy just the outer glass from ebay and replaced using UV glue. Would the touch function will work? Its strange that all the other smart phones touch function work, if you break the outer glass; but on nexus 4 it stops working. looking forward to hearing your opinion. thank you.
saj
saj420 said:
Hey,
I have nexus 4. The outer glass is cracked, but lcd works perfectly. However the touch is unresponsive. If i buy just the outer glass from ebay and replaced using UV glue. Would the touch function will work? Its strange that all the other smart phones touch function work, if you break the outer glass; but on nexus 4 it stops working. looking forward to hearing your opinion. thank you.
saj
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That's what I was asking in the first place. Let me know if you figure it out.
jacobreed222 said:
That's what I was asking in the first place. Let me know if you figure it out.
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I think the digitizer is so attached to the glass when the glass breaks it breaks the digitizer as well, hence why every n4 LCD that cracks has no touch response, the digitizer is glued to the glass and not the LCD as it is on the galaxy nexus making it a billion times easeyer to just buy a whole LCD unit
Sent from my Nexus 4 [NEO @1.836 GHz] on [PSX v4.1 4.3]
IRX120 said:
I think the digitizer is so attached to the glass when the glass breaks it breaks the digitizer as well, hence why every n4 LCD that cracks has no touch response, the digitizer is glued to the glass and not the LCD as it is on the galaxy nexus making it a billion times easeyer to just buy a whole LCD unit
Sent from my Nexus 4 [NEO @1.836 GHz] on [PSX v4.1 4.3]
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It probably is easier to replace the whole unit, however it's too expensive for some people; cheapest unit I've found runs for around 120 USD, 10 times more expensive than just the glass. Specially now that Google lowered the prices, and a 120-130 USD screen doesn't make much sense when you can have a new phone for just 199 USD.
In my case, I cracked the lower corner of the screen and the lowermost buttons don't work (ie: home, back and switch app buttons). Otherwise, the screen works perfectly.
From what I've read so far online, it's fairly hard, although not impossible, to replace just the glass on a screen such as our Nexus 4's. The main difficulty is that the LCD, digitizer (the thing that takes your finger's input, in case you're wondering –as I did– what that is) and the glass are fused together. From what I gather (I am, by no means, an expert on this... take whatever I say with a grain of salt) this means that this partes are glued together with very strong adhesive.
I haven't found any videos or guides for our Nexus, but the process should be very similar to this one for a Galaxy S3. For the time being, I resorted to just rotating my phone when I need the back and home buttons. However, when it's time to buy a new phone I'll try to replace the glass on this one.
If anyone of you guys want to try this, I hope you take a video of the process and share it with the rest of us, unlucky/clumsy Nexus 4 owners.
ivancamilov said:
It probably is easier to replace the whole unit, however it's too expensive for some people; cheapest unit I've found runs for around 120 USD, 10 times more expensive than just the glass. Specially now that Google lowered the prices, and a 120-130 USD screen doesn't make much sense when you can have a new phone for just 199 USD.
In my case, I cracked the lower corner of the screen and the lowermost buttons don't work (ie: home, back and switch app buttons). Otherwise, the screen works perfectly.
From what I've read so far online, it's fairly hard, although not impossible, to replace just the glass on a screen such as our Nexus 4's. The main difficulty is that the LCD, digitizer (the thing that takes your finger's input, in case you're wondering –as I did– what that is) and the glass are fused together. From what I gather (I am, by no means, an expert on this... take whatever I say with a grain of salt) this means that this partes are glued together with very strong adhesive.
I haven't found any videos or guides for our Nexus, but the process should be very similar to this one for a Galaxy S3. For the time being, I resorted to just rotating my phone when I need the back and home buttons. However, when it's time to buy a new phone I'll try to replace the glass on this one.
If anyone of you guys want to try this, I hope you take a video of the process and share it with the rest of us, unlucky/clumsy Nexus 4 owners.
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I also found a series of videos for galaxy nexus to replace only glass
I've found this tutorial for repairing n4 cracked screen, but I don't know if what he's replacing is only the outer glass or the whole digitizer and glass together.
vickev.com/#!/article/repair-your-cracked-lg-nexus-4-e960-screen
and by the way, did someone find the glass with the digitizer for a good price? Not considering those tricky ebay announcements of outer glass, as Ohgami_Ichiro has already alerted.
found this one, but 85,85 € is kinda expensive.
spareslg.com/lcd-e-touch-lg-nexus-4-lg-e960-acq86270901.html
Erich M said:
I've found this tutorial for repairing n4 cracked screen, but I don't know if what he's replacing is only the outer glass or the whole digitizer and glass together.
vickev.com/#!/article/repair-your-cracked-lg-nexus-4-e960-screen
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It is LCD+digitizer+glass assembly replacement. Not easiest but one of easy ways, costs about $120.
Erich M said:
and by the way, did someone find the glass with the digitizer for a good price? Not considering those tricky ebay announcements of outer glass, as Ohgami_Ichiro has already alerted.
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For example ebay.com/itm/Original-OEM-NEW-Front-Touch-Screen-Digitizer-Glass-Lens-LG-Google-Nexus-4-E960-/181230445260?pt=US_Cell_Phone_Replacement_Parts_Tools&hash=item2a322d22cc
$38
Erich M said:
found this one, but 85,85 € is kinda expensive.
spareslg.com/lcd-e-touch-lg-nexus-4-lg-e960-acq86270901.html
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It is glass+digitizer+lcd+housing assembly.
There are also glass+digitizer+lcd+housing+battery assemblies.
If you replace the digitizer only the screen will not respond the same. My galaxy s3 has touch issues now cause I only replaced the digitizer. Now need to buy a whole assembly
Sent from my neXus⁴ using Tapatalk 2
Nexus 4 LG E960 Screen replacement
Well, I was pretty keen on getting a chinese glass/digitizer. The one I had in mind was on ebay.
I was a bit concerned about waiting up to 2 or 3 weeks, but I thought at £28 it would be worth it, as long as I could fit it successfully when it arrived. The alternative was £100 approx from spareslg.com. I was a little concerned about the integrity of the LCD as I was getting some "flowing" around the cracks on the glass. I thought (as was posted earlier) tha it would be no harm in trying to remove the broken glass now, and prep the what was left of the screen for the new glass. If it went well I would know that the LCD was ok. If it went badly however I would loose the opportunity to sell the second hand screen for £20 or so (also posted earlier). I decided to go ahead and strip down the phone.
Getting to the nitty gritty, I warmed up the screen with a hairdryer, inserted a pry tool between the bezel and the glass and started to loosen. I had replaced a glass on a Samsung Galaxy Ace successfully before and this procedure felt very familiar. The procedure actually felt much easier. The glass lifted away from the lcd within three or four minutes, and I continued to heat and ease the glass for only 6 or 7 more minutes. As I was raising the glass while working towards the top of the phone, I noticed that the LCD was leaving the frame as it didn't appear to be held by much, if anything. I thought I would remove what was left of the screen assembly from the frame and continue separating the two parts outside the frame. It was at this point that I noticed that the the LDC panel appeared to be dividing into two parts; like two wafers. Wishful thinking made me hope that what I was seeing was a digitizer membrane or something; but I soon resigned myself to the possibility that the LCD was history.:crying:
I didn't bother to clean off the glue residue, I reassembled the phone and switched it on. The picture below shows that the LCD was ruined. What looks like glass is in fact the movement of the pry tool on the adhesive on the LCD. No flash was used either.
The second photo shows the split LCD. The final photo shows the digitizer grid in the old glass.
If I had the same problem again, I would probably try again. I'd be particularly careful around the edges, not allow the LCD to rise out of the frame (and possibly tear) and take it much more slowly, and possibly use a wire separation tool if around.
Ohgami_Ichiro posted earlier that the costs of digitizer only repairs can go high. If you add fancy glues and tape then it would have cost me at least £50. New at £100 minus sale of old, £15 ?(so net £85) That could be £35 difference, £45 if you skipped the UV glue.
It might not be the last time this phone breaks though!! so savings may increase!
I have no choce now, £100.
Bye the way can anybody recommend a good open case, mine had barely 1.5 ml above screen edge.
Hope you've enjoyed the how NOT to.
Hi dear friends,
Sorry for late answer but i recommend you to take lcd digitizer and replace with cracked one. Becouse generally such chinese complete assemblies (lcd+digitizer and housing) are problematic as lcd quality bit lower than original one. So what to do is; to take digitizer around 20$ (there also which 10$ cost but really lower sensitive digitizer ) and replace it yourself. What else you need for this replacement?
-First you need something thin and sharp like as your grandfathers shaving blade for pry lcd and digitizer. (cost 1$ maybe)
-Then you also need glue cleaner for clean old glue particles, (costs 5$ with uv glue totally)
-uv adhesive for glue lcd with digitizer and (costs 5$ with adhesive cleaner totally)
-3m sticker for attach new digitizer to housing. (2-3$ for piece)
and totally cost max 30$. Maybe you will work more harder but at least you will get phone which which works with original screen with better view. :good:
---------- Post added at 02:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 AM ----------
Just i need to warn you to definitely use heating gun or hair dryer(at max. temp.) while seperate cracked digitizer from lcd. Otherwise you will crack your lcd too. With my best wishes!!!
I have the LG Nexus 4 and my screen was cracked recently. I dropped it while jogging. The screen still turns on and the touchscreen works (only where there are not any cracks), so everything appears to be working still. I have been shopping around for screen replacements but there are so many options and the prices vary so much that I am not sure which to buy. I am looking for the cheapest option of course. I do not mind replacing the screen on my own. I have found prices ranging from $30 to $300. Most are in the $100 range.
I watched a video on youtube on replacing it and they showed the replacing of the front of the phone. Is that what I need? The entire front end of the phone (screen and digitizer) or is there a cheap way of replacing the glass only? If you could, could you please reply to this with any feedback/tips and perhaps links to some good replacements from reputable only companies? I would appreciate it.
Here are a couple that I found, though I do not know if this would be enough.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LG-Nexus-4-...er-Glass-Cover-Black-/231006405500#vi-content
This is for the glass screen only.
http://www.ecrater.com/p/18465726/lg-google-nexus-4-e960-cellphone?gps=1&id=55138122859
http://www.strivemobile.com/lg-nexu...-replacement?gclid=COjovaz_2LkCFUyY4AodwBQAQA
Since you have seen and maybe researched many screens, can you please tell me which ones the most non reflective, yet budget friendly?
The biggest problem I face is that my screen is too reflective and seeing things in harsh sunlight is almost impossible with screen gamma / color /whatever it is tuning
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
The easier method is to replace the whole front panel which is also the most expensive. If you're thinking about replacing the glass only, you'd require to heat the glass from the display just to remove it because the whole thing is bonded by glue. Furthermore, I'm not sure myself whether the glass that they sell has it's digitizer with it because if I'm not mistaken, N4's glass is fused with the digitizer with (the zero-gap thing). I personally recommend replacing the whole front panel since it's way easier.
Hey guys,
yesterday i broke the screen off my Nexus 7. So there are cracks in the upper glass. The lcd is still working, but the touch (digitizer?) won´t work anymore. So my question is: Can i buy a new digitizer and repait it, or do i have to buy a complete unit with lcd?
And where to buy these things? I could buy a used N7 on ebay or a screen but that is to expensive in my opinion.
I love my N7 and i miss it!
Greets
You'd be able to but you'd have to refuse the digitizer to the LCD, so just buying the digitizer and LCD together and replacing the whole thing would be better
Do you have an idea where to buy? And is the broken glass on the digitizer or LCD?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Free mobile app
The broken glass contains to the digitizer piece, doesnt it?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Free mobile app
hey i was wondering how difficult it is to replace just the front glass and digitizer on my S7E? mine is cracked at the bottom, the lcd and digitizer are both good, but the crack is getting worse and pieces are flaking off so i feel like if i dont fix it it might end up screwing up the lcd. I can get a glass/digitizer assembly for about 35 bucks, but if i buy this am i going to be able to install it without f*kn up my phone? ive been looking at youtube videos n stuff and pretty much every one i see theyre replacing the whole assembly with the lcd, which is like $200, is it possible to seperate the lcd from the glass/digitizer fairly easily at home? or should i just let it be and not mess with it?
nobody knows?
i guess it depends on your goal. ive tried to replace the front glass in previous phones and it takes a bit of finesse. you have to remove two pieces of glass for the s7 screen replacement to be successful. if money is short and its your only phone. and you need it to be unbroken then id recommend replacing the whole lcd assembly at once. you should be able to find one with the frame already attached so you dont have to worry about actually installing the lcd itself.
but honestly, the phone in great shape and unlocked is only worth around $300. less if its the sprint version. i may have to suffer through these cracks until my next upgrade. or the parts get cheaper.