In recent years my policy has been to buy refurbished phones instead of brand new. Partly this is because wandering around with ~£900 worth of tech in your pocket is unnerving, and also to reduce my e-waste footprint.
You end up with a phone that was top-of-the-range a few years back - which is still very good - and for a fraction of the price. I paid £130 for a Pixel 5 last year.
Not that this approach is without its problems though: my intention (as has also been my policy of recent years) was to install the terribly named “/e/OS” - a de-goggled android version - on the device. After purchasing I discovered the upstream LineageOS had stopped supporting the device due to stringent security concerns, which is less than great. But I decided to yolo it nonetheless…
I have some complaints about the OS, but they do put in a lot of work for not much in return, so I’ll keep a lid on it for now. Certainly preferable to having your every move monitored by a megacorp 24hrs a day, which even if you have no privacy concerns, is frankly creepy.
And then I discovered something else…
Once I had installed the daftly-named OS, got everything set up how I wanted, and used it for a few days, I realised that there was something seriously wrong with the battery life :(
I’ve never had a phone so bad, it must have been seriously caned in its previous life!
My first thought was that I hadn’t checked the specs properly, but no the phone was supposed to have a fairly hefty battery capacity. I briefly installed some pointless battery checker app, which confirmed that yes, the battery was in fact EOL…
Oh dear, after some head scratching I remembered the ifixit company and a quick internet search revealed they had a tools+part kit for this device - great! But was I brave/foolhardy enough to attempt this heroic endeavour? As it turns out, yes, I was. Would I render it an unuseable brick in the process? Well, in the words of Harry Hill - there was only one way to find out…
Not wanting to have a semi/non-functioning phone while I waited for some thingmywhatsit to arrive, I kinda went overboard with internet purchases while I plucked up the courage to prise it open - in the end I could have got away with only the kit I bought - and not even all of that.
But in a fit of fastidiousness I ordered 35ml of isopropanol - which wasn’t needed - the postage stamp wipe in the box was enough. And while I was waiting for that to arrive I realised I might well rip off my screenprotector in the process so ordered another one of those too.
Spoiler alert: Surprisingly enough, it stayed on the screen despite being subjected to a fair amount of force.
Getting on with it
The big day had come and I set aside a Sunday afternoon to get down to business. Opening the case was far easier than I expected and the bottom part of the screen had already come away a little, which helped.
NB. This is not a how-to guide - just my own observations of the process.
I carefully put aside each tiny torx screw inside the lid of the driver bit set I bought (oh yeah - they had me at the checkout with pay a tenner extra and get postage included. Still it seems like a nice set and will get used at least intermittently.)
The instructions (which I had the foresight to download to my laptop beforehand) said something about a spacer which I couldn’t identify - so I ploughed on. I think I found out what it was later - but the pictures were far from clear.
One thing to note is that the instructions include some hyperlinks - so if your’re doing more than just replacing the battery and will be without www while your phone is down, be sure to gather all those too.
The fiddliest part was removing the adhesive from behind the battery which weirdly had to be pulled out, using some tiny tabs. This is hard to explain, but if you pull slowly but firmly they will eventually come out in one piece. Quite satisfying once done. I followed the instruction’s suggestion of winding them round the spudger (its only use in the process), which worked well.
I also carefully removed every scrap of screen adhesive using the tiny isopropanol wipe before going further.
As has been pointed out online the instructions stop quite suddenly, simply asking you to follow the steps in reverse order which is quite disconcerting! Re-assembly does turns out to be quite straightforward, but a few words of guidance wouldn’t go amiss…
I didn’t notice the part about checking the earpiece contacts were ok until after it was all sealed up - I was pretty careful so should be ok. I’ve not noticed anything wrong so far.
The kit included the graphite stickers which went back on nicely over the battery.
Re-attaching the screen connector was difficult and nervewracking. It took a few atttempts, so I was pretty relieved when the screen sprang to life with no problems!
The film for the adhesive had two upper layers. One holds it in the right form, then once it has been applied to the case under the screen, there is another layer to remove before the screen is re-attached. The instructions don’t mention this btw.
The packaging for the kit was an all cardboard affair. Although the part and its associated bits and bobs of course have various bits of film, so its not entirely zero-waste. Still, a lot bettter (and cheaper) than buying a new phone.
The kit had a few redundant items, such as two screwbits which weren’t needed and a couple of other odds and ends.
The tweezers were most welcome and fairly decent, I’m sure they’ll be handy in future too.
I would say the tools included represent good value for money, though your opinion may vary.
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Overall I was pretty happy with the process and it is amazing to have a decent 24hr battery life again after limping on for a few weeks!
Full credit to ifixit for supplying the kit. It is more expensive than just buying the part alone, but by buying from them you’re also supporting the repair revolution!
Final words
Replacing your phone battery is not for the faint-hearted, but don’t forget that all smartphones are assembled by hand in the factory - which is noticeably designed for, especially in the putting it back together - so it is not an intrinsically difficult process if you’re careful.
The whole thing took about an hour from start to finish. However, charging the battery and following the ‘calibration’ recommendations (fully charge, fully discharge, fully charge again) took another day or more.
My laptop is now the proud wearer of an ifixit sticker :)
Yes, I was suckered more than once at the checkout, oh dear 🤭