What Has Your Phone Survived? 422
NotAnIndividual writes "On an ice fishing trip two months ago, I lost my iPhone somewhere in the snow. I searched and searched, but to no avail. But just this weekend when moving the ice hut, lo and behold there it was. I quickly threw it into a bag of rice and placed it under a lamp to defrost. Three hours later I plugged it in. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, really, it had been frozen in snow for the last two months! To my surprise, the Apple logo popped up. I put in the SIM card and voila, my iPhone was back. My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back. And this is the same iPhone that I dropped in a cup of coffee a few months ago! This got me wondering how much damage a cell phone can actually take. How have other Slashdot users punished their phones without actually killing them completely?"
A full season in the snow (Score:5, Interesting)
drove over it (Score:2, Interesting)
Similar to your story I was out shoveling snow one day last winter... and after I was done my iPhone was missing.
I tracked it down in the tracks of my truck -- I'd moved it to finish shoveling and driven over my phone. As in your case all was fine -- didn't break the screen and it's been working just fine for at least a year since then.
Sony ericsson (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:3, Interesting)
Mine got run over by a car once, while it was lying in an inch of snow in the street.
The velcro on my belt clip let go, and I didn't hear it hit the ground, because of the snow.
Realized it was missing a little later, and when I got home, there was a tire track right over it.
The front display was cracked - it was a flip phone - but the internal one was fine, and the phone still worked for the next several months or so until I changed carriers. I still use it on occasion for a camera or flashlight, but not a phone, anymore. But it's two years later, and the thing still works, powers up, and does everything a phone with no carrier normally does, except for the funky blue/orange splotch that should be the clock on the front display.
dropped it in water (Score:4, Interesting)
Took mine scuba diving (Score:3, Interesting)
I once took my cell phone scuba diving. It was a couple of years ago at White Star Quarry in Ohio. I was having trouble donning my rented wet suit and forgot my cell was in my swim trunks pocket. I did not even notice it until we were on our safety stop, which is where you stop on your way back to the surface for a few minutes ease decompressing. So that was 40-some minutes submerged in water up to 50 feet deep.
Miraculously after drying out the phone worked just fine.
Re:My phone has fallen and can't get up. (Score:3, Interesting)
Does browsing Slashdot count?
Maybe hosting a popular story that's linked to on slashdot would be a more appropriate test.....
Returned Device Horror Stories (Score:2, Interesting)
My stories don't involve cell phones but it's devices of about equivalent size. And are from a different era.
I used to work at a medical device manufacturer that made TENS units. I worked in the Reliability Lab and my bench was across the room from the guy who serviced all the field return units.
He would occasionally get back devices that had fairly 'interesting' stories behind them. In that era, for the price we charged for the units, they came with a lifetime warranty. And the circuit boards were conformal-coated so it really was possible to offer that sort of warranty. Returned units might sometimes need the pots and connectors replaced, seldom more than that.
But the occasional unit would have a note attached. Like the unit that came back with a note that said 'Unit fell in a bucket of liquid feces.' Or the unit that came back completely filled with dried blood.
Both units were serviced and returned at no cost to the customer, BTW.
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:3, Interesting)
Zune (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wtf? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup. Most of the damage from freezing and thawing electronic component comes from any water in the device. Other than that, the LCD may take some damage.
Silicon is not water based and is already frozen in a solid state. The chip components can go to -20 to -40 Celsius before damage occurs.
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:5, Interesting)
none at all (Score:4, Interesting)
This got me wondering how much damage a cell phone can actually take.
One of my previous phones was working just fine one minute, and then the next minute it wasn't, and it never worked again. Based on the overwhelming weight of that single anecdote I would have to say that 'none it all' is how much damange a cell phone can actually take and still continue working.
(by a strange coincidence, 'none at all' is exactly how much of a scientific conclusion you can draw from this :)
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn those white iPhones. Once at the summit of Mount Stirling in Victoria, Australia I saw these guys madly digging in the snow. One of them had pushed his ski pole into the snow and it came up without the plastic basket. New baskets are cheap but skiing to the shop without one would be a PITA.
The basket they lost was white. Now when I replace mine I don't buy white ones.
A run through the wash cycle (Score:5, Interesting)
I left my blackberry in my pants once when I put them in the washer. The phone was on during the entire cycle. I feared the worst, but put them on the heater for a day, turned it on, and.... it worked. Ok, so for the next two weeks or so buttons would randomly press themselves, and login was occasionally tedious, but it worked - and still does. I'm still pretty amazed that it didn't completely short it out.
Oh, and to you nitwit support people who gaze at that stupid little humidity strip and tell me that it is my fault the phone is crashing all the time.... go hump a lamp post. That strip turns pink when it's just somewhat humid outside. Since submerging a phone in water for about 20 minutes doesn't kill it, I'd like you to support your piece of crap hardware like you promised you would.
Re:wtf? (Score:3, Interesting)
Washing Machine & Dryer (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:wtf? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're very worried about small bits of ice and snow inside it, just pop it in your freezer for a while. The water will slowly sublimate. Simplest way of testing this, is to make a really good snowball and leave it in your freezer for a couple of days.
Re:Rice does nothing! (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of the salt shaker, the rice isn't absorbing moisture (the salt is WAY better at it than the rice is), it's being used for the same function as the bearing in a spray paint can, to break up the clumps mechanically. You could actually use some metal ball bearings for the same purpose (make sure they're bigger than the holes in the shaker, obviously).
Popcorn kernels are a better candidate than ball bearings. I'm not saying ball bearings aren't a good choice but you'll find a lot of people have an aversion to finding them in something they're going to eat.
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:3, Interesting)
They didn't replace the screen. They just gave you a replacement.
Check out iFixit to determine how to replace the screen - it's very difficult and prone to breaking something. Instead, it's just like the iPod - they give the customer a refurb unit, then send the bad ones off to be recycled into more refurb units. If you look carefully, the scratches would be different.
The other work is transferring the activation information so the new iPhone's serial number is on your account, but that just takes a couple minute's worth of work.
Otherwise, if you have an original iPhone, and it fails under AppleCare, they won't give you a new 3GS. They have a stock of all the iPhones for replacement, even the ones you can't get anymore (e.g., 16GB 3G, original 2G). NO free upgrades.
Re:A full season in the snow (Score:5, Interesting)
Learned that one the hard way. I spent 2 hours searching for a ski that popped off in powder. A SKI! It was lost in about 40 square feet. Took 2 hours to find. Learned my lesson and after that always rolled a neon streamer up my snow pants. In the event of losing a ski you get a bright trail to where it went. Might be able to do that to a cell phone. :D
Re:Washing Machine & Dryer (Score:1, Interesting)
I dropped a moto razr out of my toolbag at 280 feet on a tower. Watched it bounce off a stanchion and flutter to the gravel below. Dismayed, I said f**k and kept working. A minute or two later, one of the riggers told me over the radio that not only was my phone working, apart from a loose hinge, but my wife wanted to know why I wasn't answering her calls.
Re:Slow (Score:3, Interesting)
What I also need is to be able to extract a text file containing my contacts from thos backups.
And then I don't understand why there isn't an easy way to just import and export all of my contacts to a CSV file whenever I want. I use Sony Ericsson phones, Nokias and HTC, I am constantly needing to sync my contacts, but I have never found a quick and easy way to do that. It sure seems like something that everyone would need to do. Why isn't it an obvious option on every single phone?