FP2 screen is smashed

Hi. I don’t know if I’m posting this in the right place. I’ve cracked my screen, I’ve had a look on the market section but couldn’t find one on there, and there seems to be the entire case and screen available in the replacement section. I’ve seen some on eBay but I’m asking where is it best for me to go to get one; its only the glass that’s damaged. Unless anyone knows somewhere better to try?

I fixed some typos in your post. I assume you typed the text on your broken screen.


Unfortunately the glass alone can’t easily be replaced. You’ll have to replace the whole screen. You can either get it from the #market (if no screens are #market:offered you can post in #market:wanted) or wait for them to be back in stock in the shop (should be any day now, they were announced for the end of June).

If your screen module works otherwise and not a lot of glass is missing it can still be used. A screen-protection foil can keep it all together. Maybe someone would pay you a little for it in the market.

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Hi. Thanks for your reply. Yes, I had posted it from the phone with the smashed glass so thanks for correcting my errors!
I don’t hold out much hope for getting only the glass on the offered site, and I can’t really stretch to buying a whole new display set at 85Euros :frowning: so I’m gonna have to chance eBay I think (and hope for the best!) It seems as though several folks crack their screens so it may be worthwhile stocking only the glass.
Thanks!

You certainly have a point from where you’re coming from, but if you try to assess that from Fairphone’s point of view you should easily realize why they don’t do this.

The glass and the display are “fused” (quoting iFixit’s teardown). I want to assume there’s a reason for that other than milking money out of people. Dust perhaps?

So you as a company, by offering to your customers the glass alone and the glass alone probably being significantly cheaper than the fully assembled display unit, would encourage your customers to not very straightforwardly play around with hair dryers or heat guns and whatever tools with a sharp edge to get the glass off the unit, which may possibly fail in several ways, probably leading to a number of affected customers being pretty unhappy about the whole affair, asking you “If this wasn’t easy enough for me to do, why are you selling the glass part to me in the first place? Now I have to buy the whole unit anyway …”? And not only asking you this, but giving you bad press about it all over the internet …

I wouldn’t do that, but then again I’m not Fairphone and I’m just speculating :wink: .

And “stocking only the glass” for Fairphone would mean guessing how many glass parts could eventually be requested by customers, buying this lot, stocking the parts … when they decided to bundle the whole display affair into a fully assembled unit which can be easily replaced by every customer. Probability not zero, but close to it, I fear.

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Fairphone did research whether it’s possible to develop a screen where the glass is replacable on its own when brainstorming/designing the FP2, but obviously didn’t come to the conclusion that it’s possible or reasonable.

And I agree with @AnotherElk that stocking the glass now doesn’t seem like something FP should do. They’d either have to provide a fool-proof guide to replacing it yourself or offer to do it for you - which would make them liable for damage done during repair. Neither is an option.

You can go to a 3rd party repair shop. They probably won’t be hesitant to try as they don’t have to guarantee you anything - but if they fail you still have to pay them for their work.

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