Neighbor has tablet with smashed screen

A good neighbor stopped by with his Android Kit Kat tablet (RCA) to see if I could get his stuff out of there. The story goes it got sat on, and there's not much you can see really.
Plus you really hate to see a device scrapped if there's any chance it could be useful. Wireless Samba for his family's Android phones, on demand when you turned the tablet on or off, that would make them happy.

I acknowledge this isn't an android forum, but thought one of you had a tablet screen busted before and had to re-purpose or throw away.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

My nephew had a spider webbed samsung phone that I put linux on and turned into a "mobile"(see what I did there ;)) movie server. He could load up movies on the sdcard and take to a friends house or where ever and plug it in to an outlet for power and connect to it over wifi and watch. He thought it was pretty cool to be able still make some use of it.

The screens are pretty easy to replace though if they still want to use as intended.

feas Wrote:
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> My nephew had a spider webbed samsung phone that I
> put linux on and turned into a "mobile"(see what I
> did there ;)) movie server. He could load up movie
> s on the sdcard and take to a friends house or whe
> re ever and plug it in to an outlet for power and
> connect to it over wifi and watch. He thought it w
> as pretty cool to be able still make some use of i
>
If it runs Linux, then you can port kodi to the platform to stream videos (movies, live TV channels, etc.)

feas Wrote:
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> The screens are pretty easy to replace though if t
> hey still want to use as intended.

That gave me the big AHA-moment solution!

But first of all, where can we get replacement screens? Doesn't even matter if they're 90% what a tablet costs, which I'd expect

If replacement screens are easy to connect, like standard tiny ribbon or something, I might be able to re-purpose them. If a screen is on there long enough to enable USB debugging, Developer Mode, it could be turned into a wireless server and wireless lots of stuff. In fact even if this could be made to allow RDP in then you're all set.

In the meantime if there's any way to view tablet's display, something you could plug into the OTG port or something and get in there long enough to allow access, this could be a great thing and serve its owner well.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

You should be able to find a replacement screen by goggling for one with its make and model fairly easy. If they had installed vnc or something prior it should be easy to use it remotely otherwise I never looked into it.

i replaced a few screens in my time... most of the very low cost tablets use identical components and are interchangeable.

i bought the last screen for a 7" tablet for less than $10 from the bay of fleas. and it was just a case of open the case with a spudger (no glue) and disconnect then reconnect a ribbon cable.

What a revelation; I had no idea replacements are affordable.*

I might be worth head work to devise a way to make a tablet useful again, the easiest being to plug in a working screen with ribbon and install TeamViewer or some other RDP. Then remove the ribbon and give people their new screenless quadcore Android Pogoplugs back :-)

For instance, the neighbor doesn't seem to care if he gets it back or not, and I suspect he;s like many people whose eyes got seared trying to see the screen in the first place. In his case all I'd need to do is turn on the mini HDMI jack and voila he's got a cheap, basic desktop once he plugs that into a monitor. Just thinking out loud. Gents once again, thanks for the help and brainstorming.

* Years ago I bought a nice laptop with a cracked screen - the kid who owned it was in a car accident and now has a plate in his head, it was so bad. He was happy to get rid of the laptop for cheap. When I checked HP it was $800 for replacement screen! Then over $100 for the wholesale screen. I opted for a real monitor and spent the money on RAM :-)

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-= Cloud 9 =-