Pixel 7 Pro screen replacement

Replacing a damaged screen (and transferring the fingerprint reader) on a Pixel 7 Pro.

I have a barely used Pixel 7 Pro with a damaged screen. It fell on a sharp rock in the most unfortunate way, taking out a chunk of the glass and making the touchscreen entirely unresponsive.

I got an aftermarket screen replacement on eBay, and have some of the iFixit tools.

Mostly following the iFixit guide

First step is to take off the screen directly off the front. Unlike my previous experiences, the back does not need to be opened, and the glue was softened enough to pry and pop the screen off without much problems.

The anti-clamp works rather well here

The screen separates and disconnects cleanly. Some of the glue on the frame needed to be cleaned up.

The new screen on the left and the old screen on the right.

Well, here's a minor issue. Genuine Google screen replacements (that cost $200+) come with the fingerprint sensor already installed, but this cheaper aftermarket replacement does not have it. But, it looks like it should be possible to transplant the sensor to the new screen.

I heated the sensor and the connecting ribbon, and was able to carefully wiggle and pry it off. Most of the sensor is the flexible ribbon type material, and only the sensor IC appears solid.

Then I built an approximation of the glue pattern on the new screen using double-sided tape from the iFixit kit.

Fingerprint sensor carefully transplanted, connected, and reinforced with a bit of Kapton tape.

Test run without fully attaching the new screen. The screen works! And the fingerprint sensor works too! The quality and the resolution does not appear to be noticeably different from the original, either.

To assemble everything back, I lined the edges of the original body with double-sided tape, then took the new screen, connected it, locked the connector, carefully popped the screen into its position, and then heated it to soften and engage the glue.

The only issue that I discovered afterwards is that the front camera has a noticeable shadow in the corner, perhaps a result of the new screen not having a plastic guide (?) around the camera hole (visible in the comparison photo above).