Dean Christakos« Harvard Street Blocked | Main | Today in Interesting Numbers »
October 4, 2005
More Experiments in Cell Phone Abuse
Wow. This is the second disaster entry in a row. Following up from our accidental experiment from Fall 2004 where we discovered that, in fact, a Nokia 6600 cannot survive being run over by a bus, we examine how the phone holds up under a new circumstance. This time around, one year later, we have the Nokia 6600:
versus a (clean) toilet:
(not actual toilet)
I will not elaborate the complicated mechanics which ultimately caused my cell phone to fall into a toilet bowl. Needless to say, it was a comedy of errors.
Day-by-day results of phone performance after the jump.
Day 1: Phone powers up, then dies. While powered up, the "unlock" button doesn't work, making it impossible to do anything with it. The SIM card is wet. I disassemble the phone and leave it to dry for a couple of hours. However, inserting the SIM card into a dry phone works fine, courtesy of a spare Nokia 6310i around the house:
At least I can communicate with the outside world (though I lament the potential loss of my phone's contact list and saved pictures)
Day 2: The next morning, we get even worse performance, as the phone does not even boot up completely before powering down again. Plugging it into the charger gives no reaction (no charge bar). I keep it disassembled to let it dry another day. That evening, I plug it into the charger, and the phone responds to being plugged in but still won't boot up.
Day 3: Success! The phone powers up with my original SIM card inserted. It gets a signal, and I make sure to send my contacts list to my e-mail address in order to ensure I have a backup, lest another catastrophe befalls the phone. However, the "hangup" button still does not work, which is not a big deal since one can get along without out. So, we have a 95% full recovery after being submerged in the water. Pretty impressive.
Posted by Dean at October 4, 2005 10:47 AM
Comments
I once managed an even more amazing feat.
I was talking to my mother on my cell phone while I was setting the table for dinner (at the time, I didn't have a land line). I set glasses of water above each individual plate, and was getting the silverware in place when I dropped the cell phone -- and without even touching the rim of the glass, it just went.. KER-SPLOOSH.. into the water. If I'd been aiming for the glass, I could not have dropped it nearly so well.
As it turns out, the trick is to make sure it's dried out before you try turning it back on. However, the battery was wrecked. I took it back to a Sprint Store with an innocent look and a "it just STOPPED WORKING" story.. and they said, "wow, you must have been out in some heavy rain, the battery was waterlogged."
Yes, I told them. Heavy rain. Very. Very. Heavy rain.
Posted by: Audrey on the Phone at October 15, 2005 6:42 PM