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A phone screen usually has these layers, from the top to the bottom if seen from the side of the phone:
Glass: just protective glass;
Touch panel: panel with transparent conductive stuff that makes it tactile;
Display: the thing that actually shows you pretty images and stuff; often some LED technology; it's actually very thin;
Backlight: usually a mirroring surface with a white LED strip at one side and a bunch of polarising sheets to spread the light evenly; without it, you would hardly see a thing from the display;
Those layers are glued together transparently using optically clear adhesive (OCA).
The general idea is to warm up the phone to soften the glue and use dedicated opening tools — round blade, mediators, levers, check the iFixit link below for photos — to gently remove the back panel and the screen, unscrewing and unplugging everything in the way. If you are not feeling comfortable doing this, check on Youtube if someone has recorded themselves opening your specific model so that you get an idea of the road ahead.
Plug the new screen then glue it to the phone's body
Reassemble everything.
In many cases, it is only the top glass that is shattered. If there are no black spots or straight dead lines, the display panel is probably OK. If there are no specific issues with the touch input (minus the difficulty of operating below broken glass), the touch panel is OK as well. That means you just have to replace the protective glass! It is much easier to buy another whole screen block (everything above already glued) but it's also way more expensive: in the first case below, the complete screen replacement is between €20 and €30 and the front glass alone is €3.26.
The process is obviously longer though. Here with liquid optically clear glue:
Keep the phone (or better, the unplugged screen block) on the heat plate at high temperature (80-90°C) for a long time, at least 10 to 20 minutes so that the screen glue really softened well.
Then, using molybdenum wire fixed to handles, pass the wire between the cracked glass and the screen to peel it off. Be careful not to damage the screen.
The screen will usually have a lot of glue still sticking to it, remove it with alcohol. There are tools meant to help with this process.
Apply just enough liquid glue so that it will cover the entirety of the glass, but not drip into speakers or mics. Remove bubbles slowly by hand, or if you have the money and the space, use a laminating machine and an autoclave to ensure a proper result.
Cure the glue using an UV lamp.
Reassemble everything.
I recommend to go watch a few videos to get a good idea of the process. Note that by using LOCA (liquid glue) you do not strictly need a laminating machine but it makes the process easier; it is absolutely required with classic OCA sheets though, there is no way to prevent lots of air bubbles with them.
I wanted to repair some screens and it turns out that the base material is not expensive, especially if you share it to your local hackerspace!
Heat plate with pump vacuum: €50.26
0.06mm molybdenum wire with handles: €2.79
LOCA glue: €4.52
UV glue curing lamp: €9.37
Generic phone glue: €4.49
iFixit toolkit: €25
Lots of stuff can be found only on Amazon or Aliexpress. I choose the latter because it's cheaper and I avoid Amazon, but also because I'm not in a hurry: shipping is either around €2 or completely free, but it can take over a month to land in your mailbox!
This is a decent phone with broken glass and missing power button. I have to use the awl on my knife to reach the connector inside to either power on, power off, lock or unlock the phone, duh!
Motorola Moto E5 replacement glass: €3.26
Motorola Moto E5 replacement power/volume buttons: €1.97
Disassembly went well. After leaving the phone on the heat plate, I tried numerous times to peel the screen using the wire but it kept breaking and I'm not sure why. I probably did not let it heat long enough. Anyway in the process I damaged the screen's extremely thin flat cable conducting screen data so I ruined it 😅
So the next step, delayed for at least a month…
Motorola Moto E5 replacement screen: €23.11
I plugged the new screen, glued and re-screwed everything back together and tadaaaa! The replacement screen works perfectly! The new power button does not fit well though, maybe something broke. I applied a tiny tiny dot of glue to make it stick in place; it does not have tactile feedback like the volume buttons, but it works quite well. I could uninstall the two apps required to shutdown the phone and lock the screen, whew…
And the iFixit toolkit (approved):
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