Today I have in front of me a very well taken care of Galaxy S7. The worst part about it
is that the camera lens is cracked, so you can’t take pictures. The rest of the phone
works fine, but with a cracked camera lens you’re missing one of the most important
features of the phone. Today I’m going to show you how to replace the camera glass with
a new lens so that you can take clear pictures again. The hardest part of this project is
making sure that no glass dust gets inside the camera unit. And I’ll show you why in
just one second.
It is really hard to find quality glass lenses. Most replacements you’ll
find online will be clear plastic that you can bend or fold, but taking a picture through
plastic isn’t near as good as taking a picture through glass. I use Bonafide Hardware glass
lenses because they are actually glass. I got two so that I could show you that the
glass is real. This lens fits the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge; both of them are the
same size. I will link the Bonafide Hardware lenses in the video description of this video.
You’ll need a heat gun for this project. This is important because you want to soften
the adhesive under the broken glass so that it doesn’t shatter more as you remove it.
The more your old lens shatters, the more you risk getting glass into the camera mechanism
and killing your focus abilities and your OIS, the stabilization. I’m also going to
use a clear piece of tape. I’m going to take my heat gun, or you can use your sister’s
hair dryer, and heat up the glass of the camera lens until it’s too hot to touch. Then I
will quickly put tape over the cracked lens and try to pull off any loose bits of glass
that I can find. If you end up with a hole in your lens this project becomes a lot easier.
I got one little piece of glass off but that will be enough to start. Now that the glass
is cooled down I need to reheat it to soften the adhesive again. Then, holding the phone
sideways so no glass falls inside the camera unit, I can lift off each piece of glass individually.
The warmer the adhesive is the easier it will be to do this. You can warm up the phone as
often as you need, just make sure not to overheat it and damage the camera. Only go until it
is barely too hot to touch. As you can see the lens is mechanical, so it has moving parts.
If the glass dust gets inside of the camera, it will stop working. The OIS will stop, and
worse, the focusing will stop. Sometimes it will start focusing again after a couple days
when the glass drops out, but it’s better to avoid that all together and just be careful.
So now I’m going to clean up the extra adhesive and the glass bits inside of the frame. If
there are any glass bits still in there when I press my new lens into place, the new lens
will crack because of that pressure point. So make sure all the glass dust is off. If
there are gaps in the adhesive from the news lens that you put on, then regular dust from
your pocket might seep into your camera lens over time. So make sure it’s as clean as
possible and don’t get anything on the unprotected camera unit. Clean off both sides of the new
glass lens, making sure there are no smudges on the underside since you won’t have access
to it once the new glass is in place. Remember that you are working with glass, so if you
aren’t super confident you might just want to buy two lenses in case you break one. You
shouldn’t leave your camera unprotected for very long. Make sure that the adhesive
is still on the glass side of the lens after removing the adhesive protection. Then drop
your new lens into place and line it up inside of the frame. Remember if you press too hard
you might crack the new glass, so be gentle. As you can see I did retain all of my focusing
abilities with this Galaxy S7. Being super careful with the glass does pay off. Thanks
a ton for watching. I did link all of the parts and tools you’ll need for this project
down in the video description below. If you have any questions leave them in the comments.
I do respond fairly regularly. And all of my behind the scenes stuff can be found on
my Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Thanks a ton for watching. Hope to see you around.