A smartphone with a cracked screen or a battery that fails after two years is not necessarily destined for the trash. Repairing a mobile phone relies on accessible technical gestures, provided you understand what actually wears out and why. Before buying a new device, identifying the faulty component often allows you to extend the mobile’s lifespan by several years.
Background AI Functions: The Wear Factor No One Monitors
Recent smartphones come equipped with artificial intelligence functions that run continuously: instant translation, automatic photo editing, contextual suggestions, voice assistants. These processes engage the processor and the NPU (neural processing unit) even when the screen is locked.
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The problem is thermal. Chronic heating is the worst enemy of lithium-ion cells. A phone that remains warm continuously degrades its battery much faster than a device that heats up occasionally during a game or a video call.
The solution is simple: disable unused AI features in the system settings. On Android, the “Intelligence” or “Advanced Features” section groups these options. On iOS, Siri suggestions and background photo analysis can be turned off in the privacy settings. Several users report, on Mobile Junky, concrete feedback on managing these settings depending on the brands.
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Reducing these ghost tasks does not affect the daily use of the phone. AI functions remain available on demand but stop consuming resources continuously.
Battery Health Mode: Limiting Charge to Preserve the Battery
The battery remains the component that degrades the fastest on a smartphone. Each full charge cycle (from 0 to 100%) wears out the lithium-ion cells. Charging consistently to 100% and leaving the phone plugged in overnight accelerates this degradation.
Limiting the charge between 80 and 85% significantly extends the battery’s lifespan. Since Android 17 and certain overlays (Samsung, Pixel, OnePlus), a “Battery Protection” or “Battery Health Mode” allows you to automate this limit. The phone stops charging once the threshold is reached, without manual intervention.
On iPhone, the “Optimized Charging” feature delays reaching 100% by learning the user’s habits. The idea remains the same: reduce electrochemical stress on the cells.
When Charging to 100% is Justified
Before a long trip or a day without access to a charger, temporarily going to a full charge is not a problem. The protection mode can be disabled with a gesture. The basic rule: charge to 80% daily, to 100% occasionally.
Repairing the Screen or Battery Yourself: What to Check First
Replacing a cracked screen or a worn-out battery yourself costs a fraction of the price charged in stores. However, you need to know if the repair is feasible for the model in question.
- The repairability index, displayed in France on product sheets, rates the ease of disassembly and the availability of spare parts on a scale of 10. A score above 7 indicates a device designed to be opened without breaking.
- The screws used vary by brand: Pentalobe for Apple, Torx or Phillips for Samsung and Fairphone. A suitable precision screwdriver kit prevents damage to the fasteners.
- The battery adhesive varies from model to model. Some manufacturers use removable adhesive tabs, while others glue the battery directly to the chassis, complicating extraction without the risk of perforation.
Before ordering a part, checking the exact model reference (not just the range) avoids incompatibilities. A Galaxy S24 screen does not fit on a Galaxy S24 Ultra, despite similar names.
Original or Compatible Parts: The Quality Compromise
A good quality compatible screen covers most common uses. The differences with an original part mainly lie in color calibration and maximum brightness. For a battery, it is preferable to choose a part certified by the manufacturer: a low-quality lithium-ion cell can swell or overheat.
Software Maintenance of the Smartphone: Updates and App Cleanup
A phone that slows down after two years rarely suffers from a hardware problem. The accumulation of unused applications and saturated caches degrades performance long before the processor shows its limits.
Deleting applications not used for more than three months frees up RAM and reduces background processes. On Android, the “Storage” section identifies large files and caches to purge. On iOS, the “Offload Unused Apps” mode removes the app while keeping the data.
Operating system updates fix security vulnerabilities but also optimize energy management. Ignoring an update for several months can lead to incompatibilities with certain applications, which then consume more resources to compensate.
When Resetting Becomes the Best Repair
On a device over three years old whose performance has gradually degraded, a factory reset (after backing up data) often restores fluidity comparable to that of the first months. This software gesture is equivalent to a renewal without touching the hardware.
Repairing your smartphone involves both software maintenance and component replacement. A new screen on a system saturated with temporary files will not solve a slowness issue. First identifying whether the problem is hardware or software guides you to the right intervention and avoids spending on a part that was not at fault.