Fix screen or buy second hand S8 and swap motherboard?

Hi James,

Either plan should get you what you want; i.e., access to your old phone's contents. On your phone it's actually slightly easier to swap the motherboard than it is to replace the screen, so if you can get a second hand S8 cheaper than the price of a replacement (new or used) screen, then that would be a good way to go. That, of course, assumes that the broken screen is the only thing wrong with your original phone.

You wouldn't need a lot of tools to swap out the motherboard; an opening pick and a screwdriver are the basics, although I'd suggest a heat source like a hair dryer or an iOpener and a spudger as well. You can take a look at the procedure in the iFixit Motherboard Replacement guide here.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Motherboard Replacement - iFixit Repair Guide

Of course, if your used phone has a good screen, you could always swap out the screen instead, although it's more work and you have to get hold of the glue used to resecure the screen to the frame. The iFixit guide is here.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Screen Replacement - iFixit Repair Guide

Note that iFixit's guide shows you how to replace just the OLED display by removing it from the frame. However, the preferred method is to buy a screen with the frame already attached and transfer the internals of the old phone to the new one. This would be perfectly feasible in your case as well. Here's a guide from a Spanish site called Nadie Me Llama Gallina that shows you how to do the screen+frame replacement procedure.

Manuales / Samsung Galaxy S8 / Full screen with chassis

So there you go, James; you've got three different choices, any one of which should get your phone running again.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!