I have this phone for 7 years. It has felt a lot of pain and suffering from me. So about three months ago, I decided to repair it and give it a new life.
This phone is Xiaomi Mi A1 and I bought it as a promotional Android One Phone in 2017. The price is very cheap for the spec at that time. It used stock android from Google (not the Xiaomi os) and got two major android version upgrade support. After that I change the OS to LineageOS.
Condition Before Repair
So this is the phone condition after 7 years of use.
The first time the phone fell from my desk and the corner hit the floor. It only caused minor crack on the corner of the screen.
The second time, it fell again from my jacket pocket when I rode motorcyble and then it got run over by car. It caused more screen crack, dead pixel, broken camera lens and slighly broken USB C port.
The phone is still working fine and I’m still using it in this condition. The annoying part is just there are big black patch on my screen and slightly loose charger port.
Repair Process
After about a year using this phone in this condition, I decide to repair it myself instead of buy a new one. It is cheaper to do this because the phone is still working file.
I bought these new spare parts:
- Screen
- Back case
- Power and volume button
- Power and volume flex cable
- Port module
- Battery
I also bought the glue for the screen and I’m surprised with the size of the glue.
Maybe I should open my own repair shop because this glue can be used to repair 1000 more screens.
Okay, let’s start the repair.
First I open the back case and then I took off the port module.
The old one is very loose and the cable often came off from the port when charging. Any USB-C cable can only charge with the old port and can’t connect to computer.
It’s very annoying to me because everytime I want to transfer file from my phone to computer, I can’t do it using wired connection.
After that, I remove the battery. It is easy to remove battery because the old one is not the original battery.
I have replaced the battery once, so the glue is not too sticky anymore. I was using some third party brand, but for this new battery I am using the Xiaomi brand.
After the battery is removed, I took off the screen flex cable and try to remove the screen. It’s a bit hard because the screen is already shattered and the glue is still very sticky.
I managed to took off the screen but also broke the screen even more in the process. Who cares, I will replace it anyway.
I connect the flex cable of new screen and connect the new battery without gluing them for testing.
When the phone turned on, I test the touchscreen but no response. I checked again and realized the touchscreen flex cable was not connected. So I have to turn off the phone by removing the battery because I couldn’t use the touch screen.
After checking the touchscreen and battery was working, then I glued them.
Lastly I replace the flex cable and back case.
Finally, for clamping the new screen after gluing. I place it under the stack of books (and also cobek).
Final Result
Overall I am satisfied with my own work.
Maybe I will be still using this phone for next few years in the future.
Who knows?