How to Fix a Busted iPhone Screen for $5

You feel something crunch during a game of flag football, reach down and-oops-you forgot to take your iPhone out of your pocket. Now you've got an expensive but useless paperweight, and you're not going to be happy.

If you've got a broken iPhone screen, you know that helpless feeling that only comes from being a trendster without his trend. C'mon, we've all been there, there's no shame in it. You may be shocked to find out that the cost of fixing it is somewhere close to the cost of replacing the whole product-around $250, according to Apple Care.

You can find the service for less, depending on where you get it done, of course, as some independent websites offer much better pricing. Rapid Repair, an iPod, iPhone, and Zune repair site, offers the service for $200, which is a bit easier to take.

Still, you might feel that a broken iPhone screen shouldn't cost $200, even if the parts are proprietary and the process complicated. You might feel like it shouldn't cost $100, or even--$10.

The $5 iPhone Screen Quick Fix

Well, you're in luck. Epic Proportions, a user on the somethingawful.com forums, has made a guide to replacing an iPhone touch-screen for about $5, provided that you already have a dremel and that you're somewhat handy. The process involves cutting out the broken iPhone glass with a razorblade, removing excess glue with some Goo Gone, and cutting a piece of plastic (which you can get at any hardware store) to fit the shape of the phone, then rounding the edges with the dremel and shading the appropriate parts of the screen black. The step by step is contained at the link above, if you'd like some more specific instructions.

Your iPhone will be less resistant to scratches, and it won't look like new except from a distance, but since the alternative is paying about $250, it's a real bargain and not that hard to pull off. Epic Proportions reports that the touch screen works fine after the hack is completed.