For about two-and-a-half years, I've owned a Motorola Moto G4 Play, kind of on the "small" end of phablets today.
I went for over 2 years without a case, then one day recently I dropped the G4 and it now has a cracked display. The phone still works, but...
This is my first smartphone. Not planning to get a new one any time soon. How difficult is it to find a way to repair/replace the glass?
Also: what is the best protection for the money that doesn't look like it doubles the size of the phone?
Do you want to do it yourself or get someone else to do it? .
The screens are pretty easy to get hold of-Amazon/Ebay although I haven't tried for that model obviously but probably $20 or so
I have repaired screens maybe a dozen times on various devices and it's a bit of a lottery what you get. Sometimes the mic doesn't work or the screen is unresponsive or behaves oddly- these are the 2 most likely problems-so you may have to do it more than once. Sometimes the company will send you another one, sometime not and oddly, the Hong Kong guys are great at sending a replacement but it does take 3 weeks (depending where you are)
Getting them off requires a good hairdryer or better, a thermostatically controlled heat gun and a spudger or something like a guitar pic. It isn't difficult but you have to take it slowly and be careful. It helps if you can find a strip down that tells you where the antenna or other tricky bits are.
Getting them back on isn't difficult but they never stay on. You get double-sided tape and it never never never lasts more than a few months at best.
Anytime the air is humid it'll start to come apart.
They really need to be stuck on with hot melt adhesive or whatever they use in manufacture I've tried a couple of glues but no success and if the thickness is wrong or uneven, you crack the screen soon after.
So that leaves taking it a repair centre. I don't think you'll have much difficulty finding one of those - cobblers are offering the service where I am, along with cutting keys.
I would check they have some sort of device for sealing the screen properly though. Some sort of mechanised process like Apple uses because if they are just using a kit with double sided tape then forget it.
I doubt very much it'll be worth it though. Prices here are around €150 and you can probably get a newer and better machine for that.
I hope that helps.
