Cracked screen but the phone still works — repair or replace?

Most cracked screens are a glass problem, not a phone problem. If the display still lights up, touch still registers everywhere, and colours look normal, the damage is almost always limited to the outer glass and the digitizer underneath it — both replaceable without touching anything else inside.

The exceptions are worth knowing before you book anything. Dark blotches spreading under the crack usually mean the LCD panel itself is damaged, not just the glass — that's a costlier assembly replacement. Lines running edge to edge, or touch that's unresponsive in patches, point the same way.

Our rule at the counter: we test touch response, colour accuracy and backlight evenness before we quote, and we show you which layer is actually broken. A phone that's otherwise healthy is almost always worth fixing — the screen is rarely the most expensive part inside it.