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I have recently cracked my screen as a result of dropping the phone from my desk. The screen cracked on the corner which resulted in lines going all over the phone.
So I purchased a 9550 Digitizer from ebay from a seller that was in Hong Kong. The cost for the digitizer was about $28. Due to Christmas holidays and Hong Kong slow shipping I have received the screen a month later.
Below I have taken some pics for anyone that is interested doing a digitizer replacement but is not familiar with the procedure. I am not a technician, so anyone can do this.
First off I want to say that the Storm 2 is a masterpiece. I have seen a lot inner working of cell phones and I haven't seen anything like the Storm2. Everything is so well designed and positioned, my hats off to the team at RIM - job well done!
Next I want to mention that if you are looking to replace the digitizer on your phone I would HIGHLY recommend to you buy a new LCD with a Digitizer! That will cost you about $130, but it will save you the headache and frustration of dealing that annoying double sided tape on this phone. I'll point it out when we get there.
Replacing a digitizer alone is very time consuming and frustrating. Patience is key!
Here we go: Check the video on cnn.cn for detailed disassembly video.
Tools needed: Blow dryer, boxcutter, Qtip, rubbing alcohol, thin double sided tape, and T5 screw driver.
Here is all the pieces taken apart. The Digitizer is actually taped on the lcd with thin double sided tape. So you have to slowly peal it off. In this pic the digitizer is on the left and the lcd is the 2nd from the left.
My cracked screen. Poor thing, life so short lived.
This is the LCD. You'll notice that around the edges there is the remains of the dreaded double sided tape. This is where your patience is needed. You will need to grab a blow dryer, Qtip and some rubbing alcohol. You have to gently heat up the tape without heading up your LCD. Then you have to gently remove the remains of the tape without smudging any of the tape onto the LCD. Of course that's next to impossible so you will sit there for a while trying to clean the screen as well. Good luck here.
Cracked screen on the left & new screen on the right. (the sticker is still on the new screen so that's why you see a black line)
This is a metal panel (on the left) that is glued onto the back of the LCD. You will need to remove this to properly install the new digitizer.
New digitizer installed on the old Lcd. Hope you haven't lost your patience because you will need it again. Here you have the take your double sided tape and cut it with a boxcutter so that its as thin as each side of the LCD. So you will need 4 pieces of double sided tape here. The bottom piece should be thick. Any excess tape coming off the lcd panel should be cut off.
This is how it will look once all taped up, back to the original way.
Some comparison shots:
There you go folks. If I knew it would be this much trouble I would have spend the extra $100 for the lcd & digitizer. But I hope this helps someone out there.01-08-10 04:57 PM
