Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you want to know why people leave 1 star reviews without an explanation and how to properly install glass, read my review! My results were nearly flawless and I’m giving only 4 stars due to the instructions making people think they can get good results without bonding with UV glue. Below will be my experience with this product which will include a couple lessons learned. First and foremost, don’t even bother with this install if you are not planning on using a UV glue to adhere the glass to the digitizer. The UV glue is where the magic happens and it will provide an appearance 100% identical to the original phone when you took it out of the box (If done properly of course). You will read reviews here, like I did, about people complaining about the 3M double-sided tape and additional glare after install. I can assure you that the 3M tape was just about useless to me and nearly impossible to get laid down properly on the left and right sides where the tape is a millimeter thick! I have also read reviews about complaints that this glass is not tinted like the original, causing the screen to look significantly lighter gray when the screen is off. This has nothing to do with tint. This is simply caused by the air gap between the glass and digitizer. If bonded with high quality UV glue, light will refract off of the digitizer as one continuous sheet of glass, with no air and less glare. You need to understand that you will get different results from the original phone if you are installing this glass in a different way than the original manufacturing method. The original glass was bonded with UV Glue, so USE UV GLUE if you want it to look the same. It will also add sensitivity to the touch screen. So here is my install: At a cost of ten bucks for the glass and another ten for the glue, I did not have high hopes, but my screen was 50% spidered starting from the bottom right corner so I was sick of it. I lived with it for 4 months and I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner. I watched several youtube videos which helped me gain confidence in the process. There are 3 distinct things to learn about before you do this. Learn how to remove the glass. Learn how to clean the digitizer and prepare it. Learn how to use the UV glue and place the new glass on. That’s the entire process. It’s not complex, but it is difficult. It’s slow and requires patience. Remove the broken glass: Remove the back cover, the battery, the SIM card, and your memory card. This will assist in keeping the circuitry cool. I used my wife’s high quality hair dryer that had several settings including adjustable heat and adjustable fan speed. I also used an infrared thermometer to constantly test the glass temperature. My hair dryer just happens to be about 175 degrees when held 1 inch away. Use any thermometer around the house to achieve that temp. If it’s too hot, hold it further away. In my limited experience, 160 degrees seemed to be the bare minimum temperature to loosen the glue but it was difficult. I wouldn’t go higher than 180. Without the hair dryer going, the glass cools very quickly, so you must act quickly, but do NOT pry quickly. The idea is to keep the glass hot and apply firm prying pressure until you see the air bubble form under the glass. That air bubble will grow between the glass and digitizer and it means you are separating them. That air bubble needs to CRAWL across the screen very slowly like you are watching the minute hand on a large clock. I went too fast, and popped the rest of the glass. It was completely shattered now and I still had success in the end. In between heating, you may only have about 30 seconds of pry time. Don’t force it and try not to get frustrated with having to heat it again. Peak inside once you have it started and make sure you are not lifting the digitizer. Slowly push in the guitar pick and do not pry against the digitizer. I started from the top left corner by the volume button. Once you have enough of the glass up, try pushing some cereal box type card board in there and uses a few sheets to slide all the way down. Some packing tape on the glass helps with shattered glass and keeping the bits from blowing all over the place. Once you get close to the bottom buttons, you need to scrape them from the glass before you lift the glass completely up. Be extremely careful not to damage the ribbon cables for the buttons. Clean the digitizer: Now that your broken glass is removed, you are probably wondering if you have made a terrible mistake. At this point I was a little panicked because my phone was now covered in impossible goo. I spent nearly an hour cleaning the phone after spending almost an hour removing the glass. First thing first….make sure there are no glass bits left. It can cut you, and it can damage the digitizer once you start rubbing. I used some more packing tape pieces to try to lift off any glass dust and bits first. There will be a black rubbery double-sided tape surrounding everything. Remove all of it. Around the buttons, around the digitizer, left and right sides has a tiny strand of it….all of it. Now, with clean hands, rub your thumbs on the digitizer to pill up the glue. You want to remove all of it in this method and it will take some time, and your thumbs might get tired. I added a little heat to help, but not as much as before. Try to get all the glue out of the crevices too with the plastic pick. Once the bulk of the glue is removed, your digitizer should look streaky but there should not be any clumps of glue. I tried “invisible glass” which is a Windex-type cleaner. It did nothing to the glue. Then I tried isopropyl alcohol, and that did nothing. I panicked a little bit again and though that this was a horrible mistake. Now I’m at the point of no return, I went to my garage and got the WD40. I knew this would act as a solvent and disintegrate the glue, but I was scared to use it. I sprayed a drop on a q-tip and rubbed. It was just barely enough to make the entire digitizer wet looking. This was all it took. I kept rubbing and looking closely against the reflected light until I noticed every spot of streaky glue was gone. I flipped the q-tip around to absorb a little bit of it. Then I used several small squares of paper towel to absorb a little more. Now I needed to clean the phone from the WD40. So my method was to use the Windex to clean the WD40 and then I used Isopropyl Alcohol to clean the Windex off since it is a soap that does not completely evaporate. This 3 step cleaning did the trick and now the digitizer was nearly spotless, and I had to look very hard to find any imperfections. Apply the new glass with UV glue: I tried the tape first, thinking I would do a combination of both that and the glue. I found the tape to be extremely difficult to manage and I failed to apply it correctly on the sides. I did manage to at least get the top and bottom pieces down, while cutting off the rest with a blade. Get the buttons in there perfect spot. The main middle button has a couple rubber feet with tiny holes. I had to push those back into place. Make sure the digitizer is clean of any dust particles, blowing it away with the hair dryer or a can of air. Now for the UV Glue…I find this to be the trickiest part because I couldn’t tell if I applied too much, too little, or the wrong pattern of glue. I did one big vertical line down the middle. In hind sight, I think maybe an X pattern would have been better for the corners, but you should research this yourself. Make sure you do this indoors, and away from any sunlight, as it will begin to cure the glue. Do not shake the bottle, and do a little one drop squirt onto something else to purge air bubbles. Once your glue is applied, examine for air bubbles and pop them. I only had 1 tiny bubble. Remove the plastic from the backside of your new glass, being sure not to touch it with your fingers. Immediately put the glass flat on and assist lightly to press the glue evenly around. This is where I said the magic happens because as the glue touches the glass, you can clearly see this suddenly looks like your new phone again. Slowly work the glue around until the entire digitizer is black with wet glue. I messed up one corner and I now have a small air pocket. It may have been avoided with better handling, but hey, it looks way better than a cracked screen. Some glue will work its way out onto your fingers and it might get a little messy and that’s ok. Remove the upper plastic sheet from the glass. Once the glass is in the perfect spot and it is ready to be cured, get it out into the direct sun. Do no worry about cleaning up any excess UV glue. It will cure into a rubber and it comes right off. This needs to cure for a good 20 minutes in strong direct sun. Leave it out longer with your best judgment. Now clean up your phone, and slap a tempered glass screen protector on it so you get that olephobic coating too. Hope this helped!