sorcyress | (no subject)

In totally sucky news, I seem to have broken my phone, possibly REALLY badly.

See, Friday night on my way to meet jere7my, I dropped the phone into an ice-puddle. I pulled it out and dried it off, and it was still working perfectly, so hey, no harm done.

About fifteen minutes later, I noticed that it wasn't turning on --it just repeated the first five seconds of the "on" animation over and over. I took out the battery again, and blew on it, and let it dry a little more and was quite thorough, and then put it all together again. It worked just fine.

Yesterday I pulled it out of my pocket a couple times to find it had turned itself off. Annoying, but not a huge problem --I would just turn it back on, and when it was sitting flat on my desk, it didn't turn off at all, so probably jostling was upsetting it.

All sounds fine so far, right?

Last night I plugged it in since it was down to one bar. At four in the morning, you don't really pay attention to things. So this morning, it took until breakfast to notice it was...still at one bar. Got home, plugged it in. No red charging light, no happy beep. Unplug. Replug. Unplug. Take apart, and call everyone I know looking for rice.

It's taken apart and sitting in rice now, where it will stay for...some length of time. But if my phone completely can't charge, than I have a HUGE problem. Solutions will be sorted out, it'll just take some time.

Also, where can one buy a phone that's fucking indestructible? Bonus points for looking like a tonka truck.

~Sor
MOOP!

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Behold! The Samsung Rugby (http://www.newlaunches.com/entry_images/0908/22/samsung-gps-phone.jpg)! I've spent about a year trying to break it, and it's just not happened yet.

You could always get a non-flip and buttonphone (as opposed to touchscreen) and keep it in a ziplock bag. It wouldn't be indestructible, but it would be waterproof. Also tacky.

I'd bet there was salt in that puddle, which, now that the phone is dry, has encrusted some of the electrical contacts/traces/etc. Perhaps try dunking it in a couple separate cups of clean tapwater, and then drying it. Alternately, if you can find tiny screwdrivers, take the phone's casing off and see, and if there is salt, wipe it off with wet Q-tips instead of drowning the whole phone again.

Edited 2011-01-30 20:12 (UTC)

They even make special waterproof cases for phones (which are basically heavy-duty ziplocks with a better seal), some of which are designed to be used with flip phones.

Distilled water would be safer than tap water for re-dunking or cleaning, but that's still probably a last resort.

There are, as it turns out, a number of ruggedized phones out there, specifically designed to be waterproof and shockproof; here's a couple I found just poking around (looking for more serious cases, actually, which for some reason seem to be harder to find, though they make them for iPods):
http://www.biggtech.com/mobile/a-waterproof-shockproof-and-dustproof-mobilephone-samsung-b1200_159.html
http://www.biggtech.com/mobile/seals-vr7-phone-is-truly-rugged-has-lot-of-features-and-is-handy-in-emergency-situations_3316.html

Those are both GSM, so they'd work on AT&T or T-Mobile; if you have Verizon or Sprint (I can't remember), I'm sure there are rugged CDMA phones available, too.

What wireless provider do you have, and do you require nice phones or just regular old flip phones with number pads?

My current phone has fallen into puddles 3 times and been fine.

For future reference. DO NOT turn on your phone immediately to check if it works. If it is on, turn it OFF. I know that seems counterintuitive and the waiting without knowing sucks, but phones are much more likely to recover from a dunking if they're off until after you've had a chance to do the take-apart-and-let-dry thing.

I second this - I had pretty much the same thing happen, where it was fine, and then it wasn't.

If it's Verizon, I have a spare laying about that youre welcome to borrow for the meanwhile. I even have the power supply somewhere.

Does this mean I should not send you texts for the time being?

If the distilled water doesn't work, try rinsing it in alcohol. The alcohol will bind to the water and help dry it out.

http://www.casiogzone.com/

I have the Rock, but it seems like it is similar to the Ravine. I haven't had any problems with mine yet, so hooray.