Samsung Cell Phone Repair/New Battery

[trader_4]

Not exactly home repair, but close. My cell phone recently died, so while I was figuring out what to get for a new one, I borrowed a Samsung Galaxy S9 from a friend. He had it as an unused spare. Being unused, of course it didn't have a case or screen protector and since I figured I'd only use it for a week or two, I didn't bother looking for those. So, of course I dropped it and the glass back shattered. Being all glass, these are very slippery and easy to slip. It also managed to ding up three of the four corners of the frame.

So now I have a repair project. The good news is that replacement backs are available for $15. And it was ready for a new battery, old one was at

73%. Fortunately there are lots of videos on how to do it. You have to heat the back of the phone up with a hair dryer, heat gun or hot plate. Then use a suction cup to pull the back away to open up a tiny space to get a razor blade in, then slowly work around, inserting guitar picks or similar to keep the separation open and increase it. There is plenty of adhesive and it's similar to weather stripping adhesive, it's quite tough. With the glass back already shot, I didn't have to worry about breaking it. You also have to be careful because the fingerprint sensor is in the glass back and it's connected by a tiny ribbon cable that you have to disconnect before pulling the back off.

So i got it open. Once that is done, the rest is easy, just remove about ten screws, take a cover off, more heat to loosen the battery adhesive. Now I'm waiting on the battery and new back. Final step, I found some auto spray paint that is close enough that I can use to fix the corners. The phone is worth $140, I guess it's worth fixing it, but at times I must admit I was wondering. And for a back up phone, I think he'll be happy with the tradeoff, corners that aren't an exact color match but a 100% new battery.

This is an example of design beauty taking precedent over functionality, that is using a slippery glass back, slipper edges. To solve it, you have to put it in a case and then all that elegant design is obscured. For Samsung I guess there is the added benefit that people drop them and then buy another one.

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[Jim Joyce]

<SNIP>

I'm guessing the replacement back will be plastic instead of glass. A few years ago I had a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and I managed to crack the rear glass. I ordered a $15 replacement off of a top seller on Ebay, no mention in the listing that the replacement would be plastic, so I was surprised when it arrived. The seller offered me a refund and I could keep the piece, but I declined the refund. Plastic works, but it felt like a serious downgrade from glass.

[trader_4]

No, glass according to the descriptions.

A

I became aware of that possibility, so I made sure to check, but we won't know for sure until it arrives. The biggest differences I saw on Ebay were:

A few listings show the back with "Samsung" near the top and "Galaxy S9" near the bottom, which is like the original.

Some show "Samsung" near the top, nothing at the bottom.

Some show something unreadable, blurry, where "Samsung" should be. I figure maybe they are afraid of Samsung trademark violations. So, who knows what actually you get. Probably will say Samsung, but who knows.

I found a seller outside Ebay, iCell4less, I believe it was that has what I want and it's $15.

Batteries are another minefield, a lot of shystering on Ebay there. You can find batteries for maybe $6, that say "open box". But reading the description, then it says something like guaranteed to be 93% capacity or higher. Which makes it sound like it's used and should be listed as used. There are other sellers that say in their listings that they are pulled from phones and tested. IDK how they have so many batteries with that high of a capacity left after 3 years pulled from phones. The existing is at 74%.

For not much more you can get a generic new one, some say "Samsung", but like many other things, they are likely knockoffs, not the real one. So that becomes kind of a crap shoot.

[Jim Joyce]

I'll be curious to hear what's in the box when you get it. I'll be pleasantly surprised when it's glass.

[trader_4]

So the phone is back together again. From what I can tell, the replacement back is identical to what was on the phone, which I believe is the original Samsung. It has exactly the same markings, certification stamps, made in Vietnam, as the original. As to plastic vs glass, the back that was there was plastic with a thin tempered glass outside. It's like those glass screen protectors, very thin, somewhat flexible and it's fused to the plastic. New one was the same.

The battery is interesting. Bought that on Ebay, it was supposed to be new from a seller with a good record that has sold a lot of them. Using Accubattery, after about 4 charge/discharge cycles, it shows the battery is at 75% of it's supposed 3000mah capacity. The existing one which was three years old clocked in at 73%, which is why I changed it while doing the back. So, IDK. Either this is a half-assed battery or there is something about the S9 where the Accubattery app can't accurately measure it. It seems OK with trying it for daily use. So, given that this is a phone a friend has as a backup, I done with it at this point. The battery is at least as good as what was there. It also sure looks like a Samsung, it has all the markings, etc, but of course it could still be fake. I would think the fake batteries might not last as long, etc, but if it's fake, kind of suprising that it's a 75% battery. It could be a used one, pulled from an old S9, which would explain how it's about the same as the one that was in there. So many ways to get screwed up.

[philo]

I can work on any computer...but I consider cell phones in the same category as watch repair.

I paid $75 to have my battery replaced because I figured I'd end up ruining my phone.

A battery with the necessary tools would have been half than much...but it was not worth taking the risk.

Someone gave me a few old phones to practice on and I ruined them.

[gfretwell]

My rule is I don't work on anything that fits in your purse. I did do an Apple I phone battery swap and I was nervous the whole time. I was real happy when it came back up. You do lots of scary stuff taking those things apart. (melting glue, pulling out tiny ribbon cable without connectors and such) Give me a machine with real connectors and parts held together with screws.

[Jim Joyce]

Glad to hear that the glass back was as you expected. As for replacement batteries, that seems to be a crap shoot.

[trader_4]

Those tiny film like ribbon cables without a connector are a real treat. I've watched a lot of youtube videos where someone who is supposed to know what they are doing, shows you how to fix the phone. They don't even bother to mention these odd connections, how you have to very carefully flip open the latch like thing that holds it. They just say, next disconnect the volume cable, and do it so quickly you can't really tell what they did. Since most of the connectors are pry off type with ends and the guy doesn't give any warning, I'm sure plenty of people just pry it off and destroy it.

Also, if i were making one of these, I would start by giving some general precautions, like be extremely careful with any metal tools and avoid dropping any screws, etc, until you have the battery disconnected. Instead they just go at it. I finished off my 4 year old ZTE taking it apart. Got to the battery and without thinking, I used a small screwdriver to pry the connector off the motherboard. I saw a little flash. Upon further inspection, while the area looked clear, there were extremely tiny metal points on the board where I pried. That didn't matter much, it had a badly cracked screen and I was exploring the option to replace the screen, fortunately I had not bought a replacement one yet. So I got a new phone.

BMW is special too. They use a different type of connector on almost everything and most of them, when looking at them, you still can't figure out how they come off. Like the door switch module, it has three cables all have totally different connector types. Never mind the ones where you really can't see them well.

[TimR]

We had a couple of old iPhones, 5s's I think, left over from upgrades, and they wouldn''t hold a charge for long.

But they could still store photos, etc., so I read up on battery changing, watched a couple of videos, and decided this was in the too hard category. So I paid $50 to the local phone repair place, Fruit Zone or something similar, for a new battery.

It still doesn't hold a charge long. I took it back and complained, and they did their checks and said it's perfect based on number of charge cycles. So, I dunno, I think there are some bogus new batteries out there.

[trader_4]

If I get a chance, I may look for some other battery capacity testing apps. I have Accubattery, have used that for a couple years. But without something to test it against that you know for sure, who knows if it's accurate or not. With the Samsung S9, while it says the battery is estimated at 75% capacity after 6 charge/discharge cycles, who knows. I do know it was hard to drain the battery. I had it playing a video stored on the phone, with the screen set to bright. It took many hours. In an hour of playing, maybe it went down 15%. On the other hand, just using it for email, some web browsing, Ebay, etc, seems to run it down faster. So i guess the radio portion probably uses more. But all in all, the battery seems OK and not worth screwing around with at this point. Especially since it belongs to a friend who is likely going to keep it as a backup in case he trashes his.

[philo]

Totally agree. At least I was able to add a memory card to my phone with no problem.

[trader_4]

The S9 was factory reset. I know I could do things to compromise and lower power consumption, but the issue was that Accubattery was reporting the

3 year old battery was down to 73% capacity. It was still usable, not really a crisis, but it was only going to be getting worse.