This Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus lasted my mom nearly 5 years, but not without its fair share of wear. Only 2 years after being bought, the screen sustained a crack and had burn in. After almost 3 years after this incident, she upgraded to a Google Pixel 7, one of the best Android phones (in my opinion). The problem with the S10 Plus is that a screen protector can’t be installed on the device because of the under-screen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. Samsung had provided a plastic screen protector to defend against scratches, but not against cracks. With the phone in my hands, I decided to give it a screen replacement. While changing the screen, I will give it a new color and new battery. Unfortunately, things wouldn’t go well after the repair as it would get damaged afterwards.

Buying parts was easy, all I needed was a new screen, frame, back glass, battery and color matched sim tray. Finding them for a good price was hard, and ultimately, that was one of the reasons why the phone would get damaged later. I had tried finding the cheapest parts possible, but in the process got some low-quality parts. At the time, I thought it was a good deal, so I ordered it. About 2 weeks later, all the parts arrived. All except the sim card tray. Luckily, one of the good things about Samsung phones is that they don’t pair parts with the motherboard (most of the time). So, with that I started the repair.

Opening the phone was probably the easiest part of the repair. All I had to do was use my iFixit Anti Clamp to pull the back glass up and away from the phone. One good thing about this phone is that all (except 3 screws) were Phillips head and all the same size. I removed the speakers and wireless charging coil. To be honest, the internal design of most Samsung phones is boring, because they are almost always covered in black plastic pieces, such as the components I removed above. After removing those pieces, I was left with the motherboard. One unfortunate thing about the S10 Series (excluding the S10 5G) is that the USB-C Port is soldered to the motherboard. This also made it harder to take out the motherboard because I would have to make sure I didn’t snap the board in half. And before I did anything else, I unplugged the battery connection. After all the screws were removed, all that was remaining was to remove the motherboard, but I forgot to remove the sim tray from it. I did realize not too long later and continued.

After removing the motherboard, it was time to crack out the new screen. This is where the problems started. I found the cheapest parts possible, which was a mistake. I bought an aftermarket LCD Screen, which didn’t include a fingerprint reader built into the screen. But even otherwise, I still went forward. Everything was very straightforward, but for some reason the black plastic clips weren’t going in. So, I realigned the motherboard. I also put in the new battery and tested out the phone. Luckily, everything was working. So, I sealed everything up, and it was done. This is how it would have been if I didn’t buy low quality parts.

The adhesive for the back panel was extremely low quality and fell off. Eventually I had to resort to liquid and tape adhesive. Finally, when I sealed everything up and waited for it to cure, I thought I was done, but the phone had one last attempt to derail my repair, which lead to it ultimately breaking. The back panel became loose. I tried this literally five times, with no luck. The fifth attempt was the cherry on top. Which pushing the back panel into place, I cracked the top right corner of the glass panel. And yes, the back panel still had a gap in between. I decided to keep it like that and sell it on.

The moral of the story is to not buy low quality parts, because it’s a never-ending chain of events which in my case, broke the phone (again). With this thought in my mind, I hope that all future repairs from now on won’t end up like this phone.