A broken display does not have to be the death knell for an entire smartphone. It is at least worth an effort to see if the rest of the device is still operational and whether stored data can be rescued.
Such operations can be tricky, especially with the data saved in the memory built into the telephone, warns a recent report on a German online telecommunications portal, Teltarif.de.
The simplest method is to connect the smartphone with a laptop via USB cable, allowing access to its memory.
Before that can work, it is usually necessary to enter a password on the touch-screen or to make a choice from a menu. That can be hard without a working display.
However, it is always worth a try, certain parts of the touchscreen might still work, meaning some functions might still be available.
Another method is to connect the smartphone to a television, notebook or PC monitor with an HDMI or MHL connection. That at least restores the picture. With Android smartphones, navigation is then possible thanks to a mouse that can be hooked up via UBS.
USB hubs are available to connect the display and the mouse to the phone simultaneously via a single socket.
It is much easier to save the data from a phone’s SD card. Just slide the card out and put it into another smartphone. Or employ a PC’s card reader device.
And any data that was uploaded into an online storage system like iCloud or Google’s Drive will be safe regardless.