Phone Hardware, Problems, and Repair Guide

Since the beginning of time, man has searched for the perfect way to communicate with one another. We tried town criers, post offices, and even sending letters through pigeons. The transfer of information is vital for humans in our everyday lives as it is impossible to operate completely on just one’s knowledge. Apart from the need to receive information so you can perform your daily activities, humans also need regular interaction. If there’s anything the pandemic has taught us, it is that humans truly are social animals and we constantly need to interact with others to keep our health, especially the mental aspect, in top condition. Now, we have laptops, tablets, televisions, and even some toilets that can be used to communicate with people. But no matter how many new inventions come in to help us in our communication, most likely nothing will beat the mobile phone. You might be more familiar with people like Steve Jobs, Andy Rubin, and Steve Wozniak, but you have to look back into 1876 to find Alexander Graham Bell, whom if not for, there might be no mobile phone for you to use. Of course, the phones that are used now are extremely different from those that were used back then, but without that beginning, there would have been no advancement. Then, the people used huge sized phones, some so big that you could not hold it in your hands, but nowadays we have phones that could fit right into the palms of the smallest hands, and these are the mobile phones.

A mobile phone, which is sometimes referred to as a cellphone or a handphone due to its size, is a portable phone that uses a radio frequency link to enable its users to make and receive calls. There are different tiers of mobile phones, as those which use a cellular network architecture to work are referred to as cellular phones, while the phones that provide other services such as internet access, digital photography, short-range wireless communications, text messaging, and so on are referred to as feature phones. But the phones we will be talking about mostly today are those phones which perform a wide range of services, as well as possessing a high level of computing capabilities, which are what we refer to as smartphones. Smartphones combine both cellular and mobile computing functions into just one device.  The history of the smartphone’s development came through as a result of several important technological breakthroughs. Making the MOSFETs(Metal Oxide Semi- Conductor Field Effect Transistor) small enough to fit into the smartphone was a key breakthrough as it made it possible to build handheld smart devices like the smartphone. Another core advancement was the invention of the lithium-ion battery which served as an excellent energy source that has a long battery life. The creation of large software platforms for data providers has also created a great environment for smartphones to thrive.

When talking about smartphones nowadays, there are no two bigger smartphones and smartphone companies than Samsung and the Apple iPhone. Now before going for any iPhone repairs or Samsung phone repairs, you need to have at least a basic knowledge of what you need and are going there for. So in this article, we will be analyzing the major components that make up these phones as well as those slight factors that make them so different from each other. These components will include:

1. The central processing unit of the phone (CPU), which is the main processing unit of the phone.
2. A display system that acts as both an input and output device, receiving information through the user’s typing as well as displaying the information on the phone.
3. A battery that performs the function of being the source of power for the phone.  These hardware components are also the parts of the phone that usually have the most problems and lead people to ask questions like “where are phone repairs near me?” A larger analysis of these components, the different types, their uses, and all the important things regarding them are listed below.

Phone Hardware, Problems, and Repairs

THE CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT

The central processing unit sometimes referred to as the processor is an electronic circuit that is utilized in the execution of computer programs. All smartphones have central processing units, and they are quite similar to the ones that are found in computers but they have been adjusted to perform in environments with lower power and lower workload. They have been miniaturized and altered to allow them to operate efficiently in smaller devices, and this has increased the number of places where they can be used to perform tasks, with CPUs now being used in places never imagined like automobiles and chairs.

The clock rate of a CPU is one of the major attributes that is examined when we talk about its performance. The clock rate refers to the frequency at which the clock moves in any synchronous circuit. The clock rate is fundamentally measured in cycles per second (Hertz). Apart from the clock rate, another attribute of the CPU is the memory hierarchy which affects the complete performance and efficiency of the processor. In a CPU, replacing the crystal there with another crystal that rotates twice as quick will make the CPU operate with a performance that is two times better but it will also result in the heat that is produced by the CPU becoming two times of what it was before.

Different engineers and organizations are working overtime to try to push the limits of how far the CPUs can go and make them even faster and more efficient than they are right now. They are searching for innovations and architectural structures of the CPU that can perform faster while also providing less heat. They are also looking to find new designs of CPUs that will run at a lower clock rate than older CPUs while completing more instructions in each clock cycle. Note however that a processor’s clock rate can only be used when comparing computer chips in the same family and generation. Clock rates can create confusion when comparing different computer chips and what each chip can do in a single cycle will vary based on different factors. Therefore the clock rates should not be used as a factor for comparison, instead, other software attributes should be used.

Smartphones are fitted with highly advanced and developed chips that can perform several different tasks depending on how they were programmed. It is the performance of this CPU that stands at the center of the level of satisfaction that the user experiences as well as the overall computing capability and performance of the phone. So when people have major problems with their smartphones and need some phone repairs, there is a high possibility that the problem is related to the CPU.

When talking about computing devices and the processing speed and capacity, we also have to mention the RAM, which is the Random Access Memory. The RAM of a smartphone is a rapid kind of memory that stores the applications that you opened since when your phone was turned on and it allows you to switch between the app screens with little or no delay. Having more RAM means that you can keep more sleeping programs on standby for you to quickly return to them when you need them. Having a larger RAM means that you will spend less time killing and reloading the apps from where they are originally stored on the phone, instead, you will be able to carry out your work quickly and with more efficiency. So having better RAM means that you will have a better and easier task switching so you won’t experience a long delay when you’re opening any app on your phone. Although, having more RAM than another phone does not always mean that your phone will be quicker than theirs. A phone like the iPhone now has 4gb of RAM but that RAM operates faster than some 6gb or 8gb Android phones. This is because the phone has been perfectly optimized to function with that 4gb and the whole phone works along with it. So if your phone has just 4gb of RAM, you might not need to visit a phone repair shop to try to get it boosted to a larger RAM. Your phone has most likely been optimized to work perfectly in line with that amount of RAM so you might be doing it more harm than good if you try to expand the RAM.

With the CPU though, a higher CPU is capable of calculating things much faster than others but remember that some programs are not entirely reliant on the speed of the CPU, with some being reliant on other factors like DMA reads and network transmission, so increasing the CPU can cause less latency between the touch on the screen and the effect that the touch had on the application on the phone. But when you get to a certain point of increasing the CPU, it will not have much of an effect on the phone and there will be no benefit of adding to the CPU.

Both the RAM and the CPU of the smartphone play very important roles, although some people might rate on as more important than the other. If you usually stay on just one program and you are quite sensitive to the input to output latency of the phone, then you will most likely prefer to have a better CPU than a better RAM. But if you are a person who is constantly using many different apps at once and has to switch between them regularly, then having a larger RAM will probably be what you prefer.

A major problem that a phone could have is an overheating CPU. This was a problem that chased a lot of Samsung phone users to Samsung phone repair shops in 2018 when their phones started heating all of a sudden. An overheating CPU increases the phone’s temperature and this could cause a wide variety of problems in the phone, like problems with the screen, the battery, or some severe damage to the phone’s main components. If the CPU reaches a certain temperature, the soldier on the board may start to lose its integrity and if this happens regularly the components that are fixed to the board can come loose from the board and this would cause the whole system to malfunction. The whole system could be permanently damaged if the effect of the heat on the soldier is a lot. So be sure to visit a mobile phone repair shop near you if you do experience any serious overheating of your smartphone. Don’t take it as trivial because it could cause serious problems for your phone. In terms of the CPU, the iPhone severely outranks Samsung. With the iPhone being able to outperform even the Samsung Galaxy S20 in terms of CPU/GPU as well as frame rate per second. The iPhone 11 uses the Apple A13 Bionic processor whereas the Samsung S20 uses Exynos 9 Octa 990. These Exynos chips have caused a lot of Samsung users so many problems that many have had to visit Samsung phone repair shops. The iPhone has a better CPU and it performs tasks much quicker even though it has a smaller RAM.

THE DISPLAY SYSTEM
Possibly the biggest and one of the primary characteristics of the smartphone is the screen because it usually occupies almost the whole of the device’s front surface. A lot of smartphones have an aspect ratio of 16:9 but bigger aspect ratios have been made available recently. The sizes of phone screens are usually measured diagonally and in either millimeters or inches. After a while of phone’s screens getting smaller and smaller as can be seen in the screens of phones like the iPhone 6 and 7; which have just about 4.7 inches of display, the trend is now for bigger phones which are represented by the iPhone X or 11; which both have approximately 6inches of the display, as well as the Samsung S20. This is one of the reasons why the cost of screens has grown as well, with the cost of the iPhone 6’s screen repair and the iPhone 7’s screen replacement being considerably cheaper than the cost of the iPhone X screen repair. Most of these larger phones have been designed effectively so that it is still easy to operate with just one hand despite the large interface. Phone designers have had to improve the ergonomics of the phones so the larger screens can retain the 16:9 displays.

In terms of mobile phones, some still make use of a keypad to input data into the device whereas in smartphones, a touch screen is employed and it acts as both an input and an output device. The touch screens are sensitive to pressure placed on them so the user will interact with the device by making an impression on parts of the phone screen. The touch screen technology that is used in smartphones comprises capacitive, resistive, and surface-wave based systems. These are all essential and play their specific parts in making the touch screen characteristic work efficiently. The resistive system is made up of a regular glass panel that is covered with resistive and conductive metallic layers. Some spacers are used to keep the two layers apart from each other and another layer that is resistant to scratching is placed on top of the entire structure. A current of electricity runs through these two layers while the monitor is in use. When the screen is touched by the user, these layers also touch each other on that exact point. The change in the electric field is observed and the exact position of this point is calculated by the processor. Once the coordinates of this location are known then a special driver translates that touch into a language that the operating system can understand and operate on. All this takes happens in light-quick speed, so quickly that you do not know how much has happened. An electroconductive material that stores electrical charges is placed on top of the glass panel in the capacitive system of the phone screen so when the user touches the screen with his or her finger, some of the electrical charge from here is transferred to the individual and the electrical charge that was on the capacitive layer reduces as a result. This decrease in charge is measured by circuits of the screen that are located in each of its corners. The processor then uses this change in energy level to calculate exactly where the touch took place on the phone and then the information that has been gotten is related to the software that requires it to perform tasks. The resistive touch screen panels are usually cheaper than the capacitive system, however, they are nowhere near as clear and they can easily be damaged by sharp objects. The capacitive system however transmits over 90percent of the light emitted from the phone’s monitor whereas the resistive system transmits not up to 80percent of the light that is emitted. So the picture that is created by the capacitive system is much clearer than the one that is produced by the resistive system and it also has a longer lifespan. Several different types of displays are available and used by the different kinds of phones in circulation today. You must know about these screens before you look to purchase a smartphone as well as the advantages and disadvantages that come with each type of display. Below is a further explanation of the different screens and what they are all about.
1. The resistive touchscreen LCD: As stated above, LCDs are divided into two types, the Resistive and the Capacitive. The resistive touchscreens comprise two layers of conductive materials that have a tiny gap in between them which acts as a source of resistance for the two materials. When the screen is touched, the two layers meet together at a point and this creates a circuit at that point of the touch. This pressure is then analyzed by the processor of the phone and it is passed on the operating system so the task can be triggered. The resistive screens are not as sensitive as the capacitive and they sometimes need a stylus so the exact location of pressure on the screen can be identified with complete accuracy. They are typically used in cheaper smartphones and also in feature phones.
2. The capacitive touchscreen LCD: The technology that makes up the capacitive touchscreen comprises a glass layer that is topped off by a transparent conductor so when the screen is touched by a finger, a break occurs in the electrostatic field of the screen and this is spotted by the processor of the phone and the operating system is then instructed to carry out the action that was triggered by that touch. Capacitive touchscreens are very sensitive and they respond very quickly to any touches by the user so the user experience is much better when it comes to the area of touch than in the resistive touchscreen. Capacitive touchscreens are usually seen in high-grade smartphones.
3. TFT LCD: The TFT represents Thin Film Transistor Technology and it is the most popularly used display unit in mobile phones. TFT LCD offers much better image quality and a higher resolution than the older generations of LCD units. However, the main problem with TFT LCD is that it has quite a narrow viewing angle and when it is under direct light it becomes difficult to see. Large TFT LCD units take up a lot of power and hence they are not very friendly to battery life but because of the low cost in manufacturing these screens, they can be easily purchased on budget phones and lower-grade smartphones.
4. IPS LCD: The IPS here represents In-Place Switching and it is the display type used in the iPhone 7. Comparing the IPS to the TFT, the IPS is superior to the TFT in that it has a much wider viewing angle as well as consuming less power from the battery so the battery has a much better life span. Although the IPS LCSs are naturally more expensive than the regular TFT LCDs and so they are only found in good high-grade smartphones as it has an exceptional picture quality. Although due to the evolution of iPhones from using LCD screens to using LED, iPhone 7 screen replacement, and iPhone 7 screen repair are not as frequent as the other iPhones.
5. OLED screens: The OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode and it is a relatively new type of display that is used for mobile phone screens as well as monitors. The iPhone X utilizes this technology and as a result, it has one of the best displays available. It is believed to have been furthered reinforced which is quite good because to get an iPhone X screen repair or replacement, you might have to cough up at least $200. In this technology, a layer of a carbon-based material is placed in between an anode and a cathode, which serve as conducting sheets. These sheets are also placed in between two glass plates so when the pulse of electricity is applied in the phone, an electro-luminescent light is shone straight out from the organic material that is fixed in between. So the color and the brightness of the screen can both be decided on by the electric pulse running through the phone. The OLED display is much better than the LCD as they have beautiful color reproduction, wider viewing angles as well as rapid reaction times, a higher level of brightness, and very light designs.
6. AMOLED screens: The AMOLED stands for Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode and the display is just a type of the OLED display. This type of display is quickly gaining a lot of popularity in the smartphone world because of its awesome attributes. It also has the same attributes that the LED has with the lightweight, the high level of brightness, excellent reproduction of color, and even better battery life. AMOLED smartphones are becoming very widely available and it is advisable to go for them in place of the LCDs if you can afford it. One phone that utilizes this AMOLED display is the Samsung S9 and its screen replacement could cost as high as over $150.
7. Super AMOLED display: The super AMOLED is a further advanced and improved version of the AMOLED display that was developed by Samsung. The Super AMOLED display has touch sensors built into its display instead of a separate touch-sensitive layer being created. Because of it just having these touch sensors, it is one of the thinnest displays available on the market. Super AMOLED displays are much more sensitive and reactive than the other AMOLED displays.
8. Retina Display: The Retina display is so-called because the pixels within it can not be identified individually by the human eye so this makes the display extra sharp and the colors stand very brilliant.
9. Tactile or Haptic touchscreen: This technology is used by several organizations in manufacturing their smartphones. The technology provides haptic feedback whenever there is a feeling of pressure on the phone screen that provides a sort of confirmation to the user that the action that was requested has been received and the task has been triggered. Haptic technology is believed to improve the satisfaction that is felt by users when using these smartphones and it also increases the level of accuracy and performance that is exhibited by the phone.
10. Gorilla Glass: This is the type of screen that some phones like the Samsung S8 use and that is why it is not too common seeing people looking for a Samsung S8 screen repair. The gorilla glass is an alkali-aluminosilicate glass shield that has an excellent amount of resistance to damage and it protects the phone’s display from the effects of phone drops, scratches, and bumps from everyday use. Many companies also use Gorilla glass in manufacturing their phones so their phones are highly durable and can withstand the regular things that might cause the phone screen to crack or the display to stop working.

Speaking of phone screens and their cracking, we should talk about screen protectors and their effects on phones. Instead of going for a regular phone screen repair and screen replacement, you could give your phone adequate protection by using a screen protector. A bit of history first, did you know that the first screen protector, which was made by Herbert Schlegel in 1968 was made to be used on television screens. They only entered into the mobile device market after the use of personal digital assistants became popular. PDAs were usually operated using a stylus and it was noticed that the stylus occasionally scratched the sensitive surface of the LCD screen. So the screen protectors were used to provide a sort of sacrificial protection from the effect of this stylus and since then the use of screen protectors on all mobile devices has become a normal thing.

Screen protectors are usually made up of either plastic or tempered and laminated glass that is quite similar to the screen of the device that it is meant to protect. The plastic screen protectors however cost less than the glass ones and they are relatively thinner as well as more flexible. Although the glass resists scratches much better than the plastic screen protector and it has a better feel to the touch of the finger because it is very similar to the actual phone screen itself. Although the highest quality plastic screen protectors are better than the average glass protectors as they may still crack and even shatter when exposed to a sufficient amount of impact.

Screen protectors are not all good though, as they can sometimes interfere with the operations that are going on in some smartphones. Also, when a screen protector is in use, the existing oleophobic coating of the touchscreen will be covered by the protector and when the screen protector is then removed, this coating will probably be damaged or would have been removed from the phone completely. In some other devices, the thickness of the screen protectors can also affect the feeling of the phone as well as the way it looks.

THE BATTERY

Most phone batteries last for not too much longer than three years at their maximum efficiency. Most wireless devices use a lithium-ion battery which charges fully no more than 3000times, although this is partly dependent on how well the user takes care of the battery and the way the battery is regularly charged. It is very natural for those batteries to age chemically and this is why its performance will begin to decline after a couple of years of use.

These batteries that sit in your smartphones are works of art incorporated with the beauty of chemical engineering. The battery holds so much energy and this is what allows it to power your device for hours and longer. Now into the specifics of how they work and how you can utilize your battery most effectively. The batteries found in almost all smartphones are built-in not be replaced by the user. So for example, if you want to perform an iPhone 6 battery replacement, you would need to take it to the Apple store or a verified engineer to perform this for you.

As said above, most modern smartphones use lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries, and these consist of a pair of electrodes and the electrolyte that sit between them both. The materials that these electrodes are composed of vary between several different materials like granite or nanowires, although they all eventually depend on the presence of lithium and its effect. The iPhone 6 battery uses this Li-ion compound to work and it is measured at about 1810mAh. Lithium is naturally a reactive metal so it has quite the tendency to react and combine with other elements it comes in contact with. The purest forms of lithium are extremely reactive and they can catch fire even if you just expose it to air. This is why most batteries used a safer compound of lithium which is called lithium cobalt oxide. An electrolyte flows in between these electrodes and allows for the movement of electrons within the battery. So when your phone is plugged in, and the lithium-ion battery is charged, the molecules of the lithium cobalt oxide hold onto electrons and they then release these electrons when the battery is being used in running your phone. Also because of the reactivity of the lithium compound, the batteries have to be controlled carefully. The manufacturers of batteries do this by building the batteries a charge controller that manages the flow of electrons. So every battery has a tiny computer within it that stops the electricity in it from being discharged too fast and from being at a dangerously low level. This component that is somewhat like a computer is used to regulate the flow of electricity into the battery while the phone is being charged as well as slowing down the flow of electricity to the battery when it gets close enough to be fully charged so it does not get overcharged. This is why your phone does not explode when you leave it to charge for too long. This little component stops the electricity from flowing into the battery when it has reached its limit. Android phones, including Samsung, are known to have quite large batteries. The Samsung S8 is an example with a battery containing up to 3500mAh. It is also a non- removable battery so to get a Samsung S8 battery replacement, you would need to visit a phone repair shop. There are several iPhone and Samsung phone repair shops situated in Melbourne, AU, to deal with all your phone battery needs.

Battery manufacturers are constantly looking to improve on battery technology and laboratories all over the world are trying to explore new ways to increase the capacity of batteries. A lot of the work that has been going seems to involve supercapacitors where the battery stores the energy electrically then releases it all to be used by the phone. These supercapacitors will allow the phones to be charged much quicker than ever before as there will be little to no presence of chemical reaction. Although, the supercapacitors that are in place now can only deliver the power for quick and short bursts which is not exactly what most smartphones need. The innovation of fuel cells that use hydrogen to generate electricity has also been patented and will probably become public soon. Manufacturers have even pondered adding sulfur to batteries. Adding sulfur to lithium batteries will increase the life of the batteries a lot but they are not ready to become widely used just yet.

Apple discourages third party repairs and with the launch of the latest iPhone, Apple will make third party repairs even harder. The iPhone 12 lineup has trouble booting up and the camera stops functioning when the internals are swapped with the other brand new iPhone 12, you can check out multiples videos of it online. Not everyone has an Apple store nearby from where they can replace or get their phone repaired. If this keeps going on, eventually, Apple users will be facing delays as they might not be able to repair every device in a timely fashion. After iOS 13.1, iPhone 11 users will get an 'Unable to verify if this iPhone has a genuine Apple display' after getting a third-party screen replacement, even if it is replaced with a genuine Apple screen taken from another iPhone 11. Apple had previously done this with the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max. Users who reportedly gotten their phone's batteries replaced through a third-party service provider would get an error message stating 'Unable to verify if this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery. Health information not available for this battery.' And it'll stay as a notification on the lock screen for four days. With every passing year and iOS update, Apple is making it harder for third-party service providers to repair your device. This creates a monopoly and inconvenience for Apple users. If the consumer has no options, they can charge whatever they like, and like stated earlier, Apple might not be up to the task.

COMMON PHONE PROBLEMS AND CAUSES

These three components of the smartphone are widely seen as the most important and therefore, the phone would not work well if one of them was not functioning properly. Unfortunately, the amount of work and stress that these parts undergo makes them prone to some problems and faults. Overheating is a problem that is common to all of them. When your smartphone overheats, the three usual causes of this overheating are the screen, the processor, and the battery. The amount of light that your phone screen emits in terms of the colors coming from the screen and the level of brightness on the phone could cause it to overheat. In the case of the processor, it would most likely be the high speed at which the data is being transferred that causes the overheating. The battery though is possibly the component that leads to the most overheating especially at the back of the phone because no matter how big or small the batteries are, they carry and dispense a lot of power. No matter how well they have been optimized, malfunctions could still occur, so if you discover you have a hot battery, you should probably come to get a battery replacement. Of course, your phone could be overheating because of the presence of malware, but it is usually one of the above listed.

Apart from overheating, several other maladies are peculiar to each of these three components. Now let’s break some of these down by looking at the exact part that they are attributed to.
1. The Screen
A cracked screen: A problem that probably every single phone user has faced at some point in their lives is a cracked screen. Watching your phone slowly fall from your grip and hit the floor is one of the most painful experiences someone could go through. Some people decide to go on using their phones with a cracked screen, but we recommend you come to get a screen replacement because using a cracked screen could result in further damage to your device as well as lead to cuts on your fingers.

Liquid Damage: So you wanted to see if your phone was truly water-resistant or just forgot it in your pocket and went for a swim but now the screen won’t turn on. Turn that phone off immediately and get it right over to one of our specialists to have it diagnosed and repaired for you.

Vertical Lines On the Screen: Sometimes, when your phone falls, there is way more of an effect than just a crack on the screen. Sometimes the phone completely blacks out or some vertical lines appear on the screen. This is usually due to damage on the screen display and is best treated by having the screen replaced.

Screen glitching and flickering: If your phone screen is glitching or it flickers every few seconds, then there might be a problem with a component of your screen, possibly the touch digitizer. Bring it over to Phonebot, have your phone checked, and the screen back in top condition.

2. The Processor
The processor of the phone acts as the brain and without the brain working 100%, there will be problems. There are many problems you can face with the processor of your phone. If you find your phone slowing down all of a sudden, or the movement between screens is not as smooth as it used to be, it could be that your processor is working on more information than it naturally can. App crashes could also be an effect of a slow processor, even an unresponsive screen might not be the fault of the screen itself, but might be because of the phone’s processor. Don’t let any slight problems you find on your phone linger for too long without getting it over to a specialist to have it diagnosed and repaired.
3. The Battery

Battery Draining: Draining of the phone battery is usually caused by the constant use of the phone. If you find that your phone takes a longer time than usual to charge to a hundred percent or that your phone battery dies very quickly, you may have to get your phone checked, and possibly, your battery replaced.

Damaged charge port: Sometimes, your phone's charging port might be damaged so you would not be able to charge it no matter what charger you use or how long you try to charge it. Your charging port will need to be fixed by a professional to make your phone chargeable again.

So no matter what may be going on with your phone, it is most likely fixable, and if it isn’t, then we would advise you to get a new phone. You could check out some of the phones that we sell and contact us in case of any problems with your device.