Slashdot Mirror
What Has Your Phone Survived?
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?"
news day?
I lost my iPhone while skiing on Mt Hood slopes in February last year. In July I got an email from someone that he had found the phone, charged it and retrieved my email account for it. I let him have it since my insurance had already replaced it.
How do you drop an iPhone into a cup of coffee? The thing is barely small enough to fit into a duffel bag, let alone a cup of warm beverage.
I once dropped an old motorola flip phone off a 50 foot cliff, had it split apart into half a dozen different pieces, snapped it back together and it was fine. Somehow I doubt the G1 I have now would survive as well.
but if I did, I'd probably leave it in the stove, and the next day is wouldn't be burnt at all and would work perfectly.
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.
My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
You should really see a dotor about your addiction. I mean, seriously, that's just a phone!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
"This got me wondering how much damage a cell phone can actually take. "
Stopping a bullet.
"How have other Slashdot users punished their phones without actually killing them completely?"
Does browsing Slashdot count?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
LG VX8300: Went through the Washing Machine and the Dryer while turned on. No ill effects.
I had a Siemens cell phone that still worked after a washer and dryer cycle. I believe it was a C45. Too bad Siemens doesn't make cell phones anymore.
Pathetic.
I had their flip phone from about 4-5 years ago. After about a year the texting got quite difficult as the buttons started to stick and it became difficult to text quickly. One day when I was filling up my car with gas I put my phone on the hood of my car for some reason and then drove off. I realized about 5 minutes later and drove back and someone had run over it. It actually worked BETTER than before as the buttons no longer stuck. It was pretty scratched up though. Later that year in the winter I was digging my car out of the snow on a warm day and it fell out of my pocket and into a giant puddle of water.I took it out, turned it off and let it dry for a day or two near a heat source and it still works to this day. Sweet phone, and if anyone else has this phone and the buttons stick, run it over with your car.
I made a phone call. It must've lasted a good ten minutes. And it still works.
There's practically no difference between being frozen for one day, or arbitrarily long. There are only two dangers: contraction of metal and joints while freezing; and condensation/expansion while thawing. I'm sure the rice helped with the condensation, although putting it under a lamp couldn't have helped; better to warm it as slowly as possible.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I was in a hotel and tossed my friend my phone (LG Rumor) and it slid through his hands and out the window. It fell 4 stories and landed on a gravel lot. It then proceeded to hail and rain on the phone for 30 minutes. I really expected it to not work but I let it dry and everything on the phone works still. The screen even survived... I've since dropped it off of my lap onto concrete a few times and it's still chugging along.
A girlfriend of mine dropped her cell phone in the toilet.
Said toilet definitely contained poop.
I always gave her shit about that.
Phones break from physical impact(shattering LCD and stuff), or from short circuits.. or from component failure(caps blowing, overheating, etc). TECHNICALLY you can drop a running circuit into *PURE* water and nothing happens. Water isn't very conductive. FYI
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
I dropped a BlackBerry 8800 off the roof of a seven story building and it worked fine with a crack in the case.
I broke the screen on my iPhone over a year ago. It looks hideous, with spider-web cracks all up and down it now.
It still works. Hasn't failed at all. I have the required repair kit to fix it, just been too lazy to do so ($79 to buy the kit myself, by the way -- Apple wanted $200, and most online fixers are about $100). At this point, it's almost a badge of pride, because no one who sees the phone believes it still works.
However, I can certify that putting an LG NV3 through the washing machine and dryer will break it.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
You really have a love-hate relationship with your iPhone!
Is it the love of the shiny status symbol combined with the hate of your AT&T "service", or vice-versa?
My old Nokia fell out of my pocket whilst riding the roller coaster (Medusa) at Six Flags. It fell about 30 feet onto the sidewalk and the only issue with it was that the casing kinda split a little and the bottom 4 rows of pixels on the screen stopped functioning. I stuck some tape on the thing and it kept chugging along for about another 6 months before finally failing.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Dropped an iPhone 1.0 down a 4 story stairwell
It now has a small case scratch near the ring/vibrate switch. Still going strong after 3 years on the same battery, too...
-- Terry
My brother and I have both dropped multiple phones in the toilet over the years. Not sure what that says about us but an odd fact none the less. They all came back to life after some careful cleaning.
Cole McLarnon CEO/CIO/CFO/CTO TrueGroove Productions Ent.
My iPhone went up the Alaska Highway. It survived the crazy truckers at near Watson Lake.
slashdot is mirroring the crazy awesome friday night conversation i'm having at the bar with all my male friends *right now*! and there's no girls here either!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I'm *so* glad your iphone survived. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story with us, I can sleep easy tonight knowing full well that another iphone owner out there has found another way to talk about his iphone on slashdot. Thank you, thank you for this.
there is with the construction of iPhones that make them a little less suspect to different water damage. I spilled a coke on mine with no ill effects, but have done similar to others with no such luck. Might just be how all new smartphones are being made. My mom dunked a phone that killed it but didn't change the stickers color inside. Was kind of amazed it didn't considering she said it was in there for a little bit before she realized where it was. Verizon replaced it free since they thought it just died. That was a samsung I think.
It's amazing how many people on the subway I've seen with cracked screens on their phones. Apparently, their phone still works after whatever violent past it had!
Realized the iphone didn't have a drive I could mount, Safari didn't have flash, no voice recognition... a battery that can't get through The Dark Knight...
Laid it down on the basement floor and pissed on it.
Still running. Didn't help at all.
Mike
-- Karma whore? You betcha. --
I was on the third floor of an apartment building, taking pictures of the moon from a balcony when I dropped my Nexus 1. I watched it fall two floors before bouncing two or three times on to another roof, landing in a large puddle under and an extractor fan. I figure it would be dead and climbed down to recover my SIM card. After about 10 minutes of fishing around under the extractor fan in a 4+ inch deep puddle I recovered it, it was still on and in camera mode, not even a scratch on the case. I wiped it off and it's been working fine with no side effects from the fall and bath.
M0571y H@rml355.
This guy's story trumps all lost cell phone stories: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2277640.ece His Nokia phone spent a week in the belly of a fish and it still worked after a fisherman found it.
Personally, I had a Motorola phone that didn't survive being dunked in a toilet bowl. And a Samsung one that seemed to cave into the extreme heat of a radiator.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
I dropped my iPod touch which i kept stored in a leather flip-lid case down a flight of stairs, 12 steps, bare concrete. Amazingly the thing still worked afterwards and the glass front didn't break. The iPod did have a big cut on one of the corners which was so rough I had to file the edges down and the casing was a little bent. The weird thing is that after surviving all this it was finally bricked by a cheap loudspeaker dock.
The iPhone has a glass screen that is very prone to cracking. I imagine it's a case of form over function, since glass looks nicer than plastic. It's not so pretty if ever the phone falls on a hard surface flat on the screen. This means an iPhone won't survive the ninja powers of a 2-year old who managed to grab your phone when you least expected it, to use as a hand grenade...
Also, for some stupid reason the screen was designed in such a way that changing it means also replacing the digitizer (the touch pad - glued to it) so you end up paying quite a pretty penny for repairs (between 1/3 and 1/2 of the price of the phone!).
The ENIAC Demo Competition
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.
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.
Several years ago I witnessed a restaurant developer's Samsung flip phone fall out of his shirt pocket and into a deep fryer. It took a few seconds to fish it out, and the pull-out antenna was a bit mangled, but the phone still worked! He continued to use that phone for quite sometime, though it has since been retired due to old age, I think.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
My phones like water.
First phone, went swimming three times: pool, lake, then creek. Survived fine. This wasn't "splash, oh no!". This was swimming around for a good 10 minutes and then "meh...it's a trooper.".
Second phone: swimming in lake, dropped into "freshly flushed" toilet. Works fine. Still can't hold this one close to my face...
For all the cases, took the battery out and let it dry in a sunny window for two weeks without trying to turn it on. Always powered right up. The water indicators always worked...and always fell off the second time around. There's not really that much in a modern phone that can be damaged by low conductivity water directly. I suppose if you caused the power converter to go unstable or something, then you have a chance of killing it. Unfortunately, my GPS died in the second lake incident...the old school LCD that used rubber contact strips had debris trapped in it...couldn't get it to align properly or stay put after cleaning it..
I still have and use a Handspring VisorPhone (remember those?). It's survived being dropped, sat on, washed, lost in snow, and crushed, several times over. Hell, my original Visor that carried it didn't survive getting washed, but the phone part did, and Visors sell on eBay for dirt cheap nowadays.
"My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back."
Where was your life during the last two months?! Associating having a life with having a gadget is pretty sad.
Try the outdoors, now with 100% surround sound and full-immersion 3D.
My iPhone 2G has survived almost three years of AT&T's spotty reception, their failure to offer a reasonably priced rate plan for people who don't talk much but need data service, their woeful customer service, and their lack of 3G coverage outside metropolitan areas. Other than that, it's been very enjoyable.
Sent from my iPhone
My phone survived 2 Girls and a C...well you get the idea.
I'm pretty sure those videos are bad to the phone.
My iPhone took a quick dip when I fell through the ice (while jumping from piece to piece before they sunk like Mario) in Lake Michigan two winters ago. After clawing my way back onto a steady piece I turned off the phone and sucked as much liquid as I could out of all inputs. I don't know if that helped but a day later the phone was fine, so I was happy about that and not dying in the lake.
What has Chuck Norris's phone survived?
Note to self: Never lend him electronics.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
My own phone has survived more than a mere season's worth of snow, getting run over, being dropped in a cup, and the more mundane causes of death. My own phone has survived the nuclear apocalypse. The zombie one. It was used as a weapon to bash in zombie skulls, and it survived a direct nuclear blast from a 50 megaton nuclear warhead; not even a scratch. Let's see your phones do that! Oh, and it survived a direct attack by God Almighty; all I had to do was trick the bastard into thinking that the phone was a chariot of iron. And you know what? It still had a full charge! It never drops a call or anything. Now, if you'll excuse me, I will return to my time machine after I laugh at your pathetic "iPhone" and "Droid." Smart phones? Ha! If only I could tell you more....
SSC
I know it's not a phone, but someone in my scout troop brought his zune 120 on a campout and accidentally left it out on a bench the night it rained. After finding it in a small pool of water, he turned it on to find that it still worked like new.
Cooking isn't just about putting water in things, you know...
Also, rice does indeed appear to be a desiccant, just not as strong a desiccant as purpose-made things like silica gel. It's fairly common to put a few grains of dry rice in a salt shaker to prevent the salt sticking together from moisture.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
No, it's so much MORE than just a life. It's life, it's the meaning of life, and it's the afterlife.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
All those little 'do not eat' packets that come sealed in packages with devices and items you buy contain a desiccant. And it's reusable. Usually the desiccant in them is crystal granules that are blue when dry, and go white when they've absorbed moisture. You can bake them at a low heat in an oven to re-dry them out for reuse. In fact, it's worth saving all the little 'do not eat' packets for that purpose. You can tear the packet open and keep the granules inside to combine in a larger container if you wish.
It's common practice to use that kind of desiccant in a sealed safe where you are storing rare coins or anything else you don't want to tarnish. You can buy it in bulk quantities for that purpose. Put the recharged-blue desiccant in the safe before sealing it, and it'll pull all the moisture out of the sealed-in air and reduce corrosion/tarnishing of the silver/copper coins.
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).
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
... in a glass of water. The thing was totally submerged. I took the batteries out and laid it on the counter for 2 days. I put them back in, and I'm still using it.
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 :)
My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
If that's your life, you need a real one.
Is it really you posting?
I had a Nokia years ago which I twice dropped into a bathtub full of water which after careful drying still worked. In addition, I have a powerbook which has taken a good amount from a bottle of beer as well as half a glass of red wine (which did more damage, the backlighting only works on a few keys and the left apple key is dead). My X60 faired better from the .5 liter of red wine, it simply flowed out the bottom and with a bit of water afterwards and careful drying works fine.
I haven't really had anything, but my mother.. another story. First the phone was my big brother's. It dropped on some sort of automated painting line. First submerged in paint and then heated in an oven, works fine. Gave to my mom, she forgot it in her pants, goes through some washing, still works. The battery started dying so bought a new tho'.
Once, I washed my Palm LifeDrive in the pocket of my jacket. I put the jacket in the dryer and heard a "thunk, thunk" sound when I turned it on. My LifeDrive had been through a complete wash cycle and several hard impacts in the dryer.
I took it out and let it dry out for two weeks....and it worked without a problem!
I have dropped my phone on a highway at about 55 mph from my bike, it dinged up the case a bit but, someone found it and it made it back to me, and then it also survived me totaling a bike, I finally gave up on it because the battery eventually got to the point to where it would not charge, and decided it was time for another phone.
Ironically my friend still uses that phone, after he bought a new battery and door for it.
Phone is a Motorola ic902
-- and unfortunately it didn't survive. I ended up donating the phone and accessories to a charity, because I heard that they can still make money from recycling it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
my friend and i were canoeing around toronto island in the summer of 2007 - which unfortunately got us turned-over from a big wave on the home stretch - there we were in the water, bailing out the canoe - cell phone in the back pocket... dried it out for a week.. got a black screen.. dried it out for two weeks.. it worked!! and for another two years after that. :-D
I was at Lake Mývatn in northern Iceland last year, and noticed a certain touchscreen phone lying in the mud at the base of a giant volcanic crater. I figured it was a dead bit of electronics but picked it up anyway. When I later tried charging it, I was surprised to see it turn on, and indeed work perfectly. There was a bit of water damage behind the screen, but over the next couple of days that faded away, leaving only a little sprinkling of sediment. Turned out its owner had lost it in March sometime, and I'd found it in June.
What worried me at first was that, next to an ominous black cone in a remote, nearly deserted, highly volcanic area choked with flies and smelling of sulphur, within sight of a smoking crater once believed to be the entrance to Hell, I'd found this shiny black object glinting in the sun at me, just waiting to be picked up...
I got my daughter a Palm Centro via AT&T. It did not survive normal use. She is not particularly careless, the case never showed any visible damage. It was replaced 3 times by AT&T and failed again. She fell back to one of those $15 by-the-minute phones they have at Target, which work when you swap in the SIM card. At least the damn thing works reliably. AT&T no longer sells Palm smartphones, at least in California.
News Flash: Palm stock is down nearly 40% in the last 5 days. Gosh, I wonder why.
Put my phone in the wrong pocket once. I always put it in my left hip pocket, so I got a fright when I reached for it and it wasn't there. Eventually found it in my right hip pocket. Fortunately it still worked.
My HTC once litterally drowned while under (battery) power, it was completely garbled, started rebooting, shaking, flickering, all sorts of weird stuff. :)
Removed the battery & dried it in my car by putting it on the grill in the dashboard, and it worked again, but the buttons were still foobarred.
Came home & took it apart, then took the buttons apart & cleared all the hunk in them, and lo & behold, it's as good as new, it took me 2 hours of labour to fix it completely, but those two hours were still less expensive then replacing it
I think what everyone really wants to know is, what happened to the rice?
don't handle explosives.
I host all stories I submit to slashdot on my phone. One got accepted. After it exploded in my pocket, I now walk with a limp. Damn you slashdot. First you ruin my social life, then destroy me physically.
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.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I put mine on vibrate mode, inserted it into a hooker's vagine and had all of my friends call my number.
It wasn't easy retrieving it, but it still works. I just have these funny bumps around my ears and cheek now.
ôó
7 years of constant, daily use and abuse. Still runs awesome.
Image: http://208.69.42.194/scpfiles/6310i.jpg
I've been actively looking at replacement phones for over 2 years now and
cannot find a phone with the quality and battery life that come even close.
Normally its not the water damage per se but the user when they turn it on before allowing it to dry. Cell phones are made very water resistant compared to digital cameras. But if you let the laptop, mp3 player, psp or camera dry for a week (helping it dry without damaging) replace the power unit just in case and then try. I take it apart and clean it after with methanol or a circuit friendly fluid for cleaning electronics like sensor cleaning fluid. That helps with sugar or dirty water like the lake. I've had broken cameras given to me at my job that are fixed with cleaning the circuits. Most don't work like new.
My WE500 has survived multiple falls from the 6-inch shelf above my desk and continues to function flawlessly.
Once at a tram stop in Melbourne I noticed the guts of a phone beside the road. It looked like it had been run over enough times to push it sideways into the tram stop. I scouted around for a bit and found the battery and cover.
It powered up okay so I searched the sent and received calls to try to identify the owner. Everybody puts "Home" in their phone book but this started with +60 which made sense because this was near the university. I wasn't going to call this students parents in Malaysia and tell them I had found their kid's phone smashed to bits on road in Melbourne so I picked the most commonly called local number and got the girls boyfriend.
He passed my details to the owner and I dropped it at her apartment, not that it was going to be much use to her apart from recovering the SIM.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The worst for me would have been my old Motorola Razr that survived a full cycle in the washing machine, then tumbled dry. I left it off and let it dry for a week before trying to power it back on - and not a thing wrong with it.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
I ran over a Motorola SLVR with my car. The whole phone was bent like a banana. Aside from the screen cracking and not working, everything else worked like normal.
I've dropped my HTC Tilt about a dozen times onto hard surfaces like concrete. The design is actually pretty genius because most of the force goes into the battery cover popping off the back, which leaves the phone relatively undamaged. It has a few minor scuff marks but otherwise works perfectly (other than the shitty OS).
I guess they don't make 'em like they used to.
I upgraded my Treo 600 to a 650 after slipping while crossing a very small stream on the beach. It did *not* like getting even a little wet.
Likewise, my Canon A70 became a Canon A670 after the "waterproof" housing leaked about a half-teaspoon of salt water snorkeling. It's amazing how fast salt water corrodes!
Each of those was a minor upgrade, but I did not in the slightest miss the Olympus 320L (and the 20second picture cycle times) when it jumped off the ski lift into several feet of the most beautiful powder I've had the pleasure of skiing in, never to be seen again (though I do wish I could have found the memory card and pictures --- if someone found one at Northstar/Lake Tahoe after the snow melted in '94...) Upgrading to a Nikon Coolpix 950 was a major improvement...
Fortunately, I like lemonade ;-)
If your life was tied to your I-Phone, you have much worse things to worry about than your phone.
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
...banging it hard with a hammer?
Was on vacation and watched my father drop his Crackberry into a hottube, Went down about 2 FT and pulled it out, He dried it out for a few hours and the phone turned on!
Bacardi 151+knife+phone= Broken phone. Who'd have thought. So, not so much surviving, per-say, although I still had all the pieces!
My phone had fallen into the sewer before in my work as a sanitary sewer inspector, but once it took over 10 minutes before it got pulled out of the water/muck. I thought it was dead, but after a week of drying out, I popped the battery in and it was alive and running fine.
Many years ago, a good friend of mine dropped his Nokia 3110 in the snow outside his parents house. We lived way up in the arctic then, and we couldn't find it.
So we basically assumed it was gone forever.
Later we found out that it had gotten frozen in the snow, and covered with a huge snowpile. His dad found the phone when he ran over it with his snowblower. It got sucked into the snowblower, blown maybe 20 yards away and landed in anoter pile of snow. His dad wondered what the clunk was and found the phone.
We thawed it out, plugged it in the charger and it lit up just as new. It had been frozen in ice/snow for maybe four months, gone through a snowblower and then thawed out and the only visible damage to it was a small chunk taken out of the plastic casing by one of the snowblowers blades.
Same phone was later the following summer accidentally dropped into shallow water in a lake. He dove down after it, let it dry in the sun and it started up just as new again. Only effect of a dip in the lake was that the numberpad squeaked for a few days afterwards.
The thing that almost killed it was a three-story drop onto concrete. The phone survived with some superficial damage to the casing and a distorted frame, but you could still use it. However the display got smashed in the fall and that made it quite useless so he retired it.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
While trying to answer a call I lost control of the phone and it fell down the slightly-bigger-than-a-phone gap between the elevator shaft and the car. 6 Floors to the basement. Two weeks later it was returned to me by building maintainence and with a new battery it worked perfectly. Then, a couple of weeks later, it fell from my pocket into the snow at the top of a ski-run in Whistler. An hour later when I discovered it was missing, I called it and it had been picked up by a fellow skier. Apart from a slice on the plastic from being skied over it was 100%.
A few years ago I had an LG flip phone that was sitting in the seat beside me in a chevy trailblazer. I had the windows down, and was driving up an acceleration ramp to get on the interstate. I was doing probably 40 miles/hour, and reached over to the seat to grab my baseball cap to put it on. Well unbeknownst to me, the phone had slid into the cap and so when slinging my hat onto my head, the phone flew out the window! I pulled to the side and ran back, picking up the phone, and it had survived intact and still functioning although scratched up abit!
Sounds like a trebouchet(sp?) tale doesn't it!
I was on the strip with some friends on the 2nd floor of a double decker bus and I forgot my iPhone on the seat when I left.
When I realized I forgot my iPhone I was in the Monte Carlo casion (if my memory is good)
I then started to run outside, passed the monte-carlo street, got inside the New-York New-York at the 2nd floor to go over the W Tropicana Avenue, Inside the excalibur I went down to the 1st floor and I was still running like if a tiger was chasing me.
Finally I arrived at the bus stop before the bus.. I went inside, checked the 2nd deck my iPhone was not there and I was unsure I was in the right bus. finally I talked with the driver and he was able to call ahead where all the bus stop.
Finally when we arrived I was told to go talk to someone who work in an office there. It happend that my cell phone was found and that it was given to the driver who gave it to the guy in the office.
I finally got back to my friends and I had my cell phone with me ;-)
my iPhone has survived being lost in Las Vegas ;-)
Now if only I could find my Citizen Ecodrive that my GF gave me.. I lost it in a computer Lab at the university :-(
Survived a mosh pit on a concrete floor, with boot prints. Just one tny crack on the screen cover, everything else was fine.
I bought a Treo 600 when they first came out on Sprint MANY years ago. I was out with a friend of mine going down the Wekiwa River in Orlando and was using the phone to take pictures of gators, etc and email them as we were going down the river. I used the phone all day, took a ton of pictures, etc and everything was just peachy. As we were returning to dock the boat, we bumped into something and I fell down in the boat and the phone went overboard into about 5 feet of water. I dove in after it, had to dig around in the mud at the bottom of the river and retrieved the phone. Of course it was dead and I was not a happy camper.
Took it home, tossed it on the counter and went about my business. A few days later, you could kind of see the display trying to light up. A few more days and the phone booted and was completely operational. Sprint insurance ended up replacing it a few months later but it worked flawlessly up until that point.
If you had used "find my iPhone," you likely would have been able to find it in the snow (yes, I know the GPS isn't that accurate - he'd have made the phone ping and listened for it) and not had to wait the two months.
I used to climb radio towers. Once during a climb, I had one of those beefy Nextels fall about 350 feet. Once I found it, I was not only shocked to find it in one piece, but that it was still on...
iPhone fell 8 feet from my back pocket onto the concrete garage floor while I was climbing into the rafters, I was re-hanging sheetrock. No scratches and worked perfectly. That was just it's worst fall. It also survived lesser falls without incident.
I think the question you're really asking is ... "Will it blend?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
Yar, it were the Year of Our Lord twenty ought seven, and me shipmates and I did embarke on a trip of weighty providence. Our employer, having determined a need for many tonnes of fine whale oil, dispatched our doughty crew to 100 leagues off the shores of Greenland, there to hunt the mighty Leviathan from his home in murky depths. As be my wont, I packed my usual accoutrement for such a journey: a flask of Kentucky bourbon, a two-flue iron harpoon, and me trusty iPhone.
But lo, did we search from dawn to dusk for many days, sighting neither tail nor spout. We were discouraged, yes, but we salty dogs of the ocean kept our spirits high with rousing sea shanties, strong grog, and the freshest games direct from the app store. And then one night, as I whiled away my pre-dawn watch playing Galcon, a true sea monster of terrible size and power breached up before our bow. "Ahoy, mateys!" I cried, but hardly had the words left my mouth when the creature did smite our whaler with his mighty tail. Not a few sailors did he launch into the sea that day with his blow, and also me unlucky iPhone, which slipp'd me hands and tumbled into the gray and churning ocean. Old Nob, satisfied with his destruction, followed it down before we could get hook or shot on him.
And yet, that is not the end of this tale! Indeed, it were not a fortnight hence when we brought in our first catch of the journey. A small fellow, yes, but rich in blubber. As the boys flensed this beast for his oil, one suddenly raised a cry: "Hark! An iPhone!" And there it were, a deep as Jonah in the belly of this whale; me trusty old iPhone, good a new. Immediately I turned her on, and by the Good Lord did not me contacts, me apps, and all me videos of dancing cats came back at once. It were a miracle!
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
I have taken my iPhone several times outside of its altitude constraints while skydiving. I forgot a few times to turn it off, and thus had it at 12,500-14,000 feet operating. The maximum operating altitude is 10,000 feet.
Let's hope there isn't a little red dot for THAT. :)
"And this is the same iPhone that I dropped in a cup of coffee a few months ago"
I have heard of spilling coffee on your phone, but dropping it in a cup of coffee this seems almost impossible.
1. iPhone is only about a 1/2 inch in width (when holding vertical) smaller then an average coffee mugs diameter ... to drop it with such precision would be amazing even from a few inches above it. ... grande or gigantor the diameter of the top is even smaller and it narrows unlike most mugs making it even harder.
2. Taking in say your average drive through, or gas station cup, unless you are ordering a large
3. Take out cups have LIDS.
4. Travel Mugs have LIDS.
5. If you are holding your phone over (and dropping it in) a huge fancy coffee house bowl of a mug, with your black rimmed glasses and soul patch, the word douche would come to mind.
If you did indeed drop it in a cup of coffee and number 5 is not true then I can only see you drinking coffee out of a Big GULP, and congrats to you my friend your bowels must be made of titanium.
Drinking with some friends, they decided not to put the fire out when we were done, so i grabbed some water and poured it on the fire, a few min later i realized my iphone was lost, then we realized the embers were making music, i pulled it out, the entire front screen had cracked, and the back had melted, but it still worked fine for about another year.
I was on a train from Nairobi to Mombasa when I went to the restroom. I pulled up my pants and my RAZR unclipped from my belt and went down the hole onto the tracks.
Now some lucky Kenyan has my likely still working shitcovered phone literally dropped from a moving train.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
I once had an old Motorola flip phone that survived complete immersion to about three feet of fresh water when I fell off a canoe..
PGP public key at: http://keskydee.com/gil.asc
I was walking to work, fiddling with the iPod controls when my phone slid right out of my left hand. For a second I hoped the headphone jack would catch it long enough for me to snag it with my hand, but it popped right off and hit the concrete sidewalk just as my left foot was coming forward. I kicked the phone while it was still vertical and it went skipping along the sidewalk over the crack and scraping to a stop. The only damage is a couple of minor scratches on the chrome area around the frame, and the case is slightly ajar on the side with the volume rocker. It won't survive another beer being spilled on it, but for now it's function is perfectly intact.
i dropped my razor into a cup of beer and it continued to work fine for 6 months and then the 1,4,7,* keys stopped working
What has my iPhone phone survived?
After spending hours trying to work out how to get my iPhone to run more than on aPplication at once, I thought sod it, and proceeded to nail my iPhone to a wooden cross.
Three days later, I picked it up again. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, really, I'd shoved a nail right through the almighty touchscreen! To my surprise, the aPple logo popped up. My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
Life wouldn't be worth living if I hadn't discovered the iPhone.
Had an old Nokia brick; can't remember what, but got REALLY drunk one night, passed out in my buddy's spare bed, pissed my pants at some point during the night. Rookie move: tried powering up the phone to see if it still worked. Zap. Nope. Fast forward 5 or 6 years later: Blackberry 8700, toilet filled with fresh urine (was checking messages while taking a leak), dropped it in, hand followed, pulled off battery cover, removed battery, let sit for a few days. Bam! She works! Wife won't go near that old phone; sometimes I freak her out and throw it on the couch next to her when she's watching TV.
body massage!
Repeatdly actually -- and I've never dried it out!
However, it's a Casio Boulder (water/shock proof) because I killed the last 3 jumping out of the boat ;-)
My camera's the same way (Canon D10)
I had a Motorola KRZR for a few years. It survived being frequently left in my truck overnight, in the worst of Montana winters (-30 to -40 degrees). It always worked fine after that it just took a while for the screen to warm up and respond normally. Not too long ago I couldn't find it, and called it from my wife's phone. We heard it ringing, and finally traced it to the clothes dryer, where it was being dried in my pants pocket, on high heat. It had survived a wash cycle, and the dry cycle while powered on, and still worked fine.
I recently replaced it, with another Motorola.
I dropped the cordless phone in the sink while doing dishes. I was on the phone at the time. Pulled it out of the sink and was still connected to the person I was talking to. Said goodbye, hung up and pulled the battery out and let it dry. Still works fine.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
It was there for less than 15 seconds. Bricked it.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
That damned phone lasted for three plus years, in my pocket everyday. My kids used it to make period phone calls. Many drops, stepped on, and generally just abuse. Then one day, I dropped it at just the right angle and a side near the hinge. It lasted for two more weeks before I accidentally snapped the lid of the phone off. Even without a working display the phone still worked! I could hear it ring or vibrate, but when I answered it, I had to put it on speaker phone to talk to the person.
Well, the display was obviously dead so anything phone related didn't work, but after three years the thing still "works."
Now the w450 they sent to me as a replacement. That thing sucks. The interface is painful, the screen seems smaller and the buttons just don't seem to work as well.
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
My phone fell into a bucket of bleach+water for mopping purposes at work and was completely underwater for a few seconds. Didn't turn off or anything fortunately. It's a "Kyocera" $10 Virgin Mobile phone xD, very abuse-resistant in my experience 3
My cheapy Kyocera fell down the stairs once, (thud thunk thunk thank thunk) and it still works to this day.
My aunt was looking at her daughter in-law's phone and when to pass it back over a table. Each though the other had it .. and plunk into a glass of water. Everyone at the table was laughing, phone was dried off and it worked just fine!
Went hiking and was caught in a downpour. It rained all night (I discovered I do NOT like being on top of a mountain during a thunderstorm). I pulled my phone from the outside pocket of my pack, it had water on the inside of the screen, between the clear plastic face and the LCD. When we got back to the car, laid it, with the battery cover off and the battery removed, on the defroster vent in my car and drove home. It's worked fine since.
My Samsung i760 survived countless Shanghai taxi rides. Me, not as well...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I lost mine for a week. It rained the whole week so I didn't get out to look for it. After the rain stopped I was in the duck pin and found it. It fell out of my pocket while I was feeding the ducks and geese and they stomped it into the mud. I wiped it down and wrapped it in tissue, placed it on a heating pad for a couple of days before I tried it. Other than some calcium residue it powered up and is still working a year later.
Steam Locomotive
I'm an EMT at a volunteer ambulance squad, and a friend of mine lost his phone from his pocket while climbing into the cab. Neither of us realized this, so we left - driving directly over it with a 14,000 pound vehicle.
We came back when he couldn't find his phone. The phone actually still worked (buttons and made phone calls), but the screen was pretty much powder. The whole thing was bent like a potato chip.
It worked well enough that they could recover all his data when they replaced it for him. He showed up in uniform to the Verizon store and they were so amused they gave him a free phone.
On the other hand, my first phone - a Motorola RAZR v3m - died from sitting on my dresser. Woke up one morning, opened it up, and the phone had turned off. Tried to turn it back on, and nothing happened. Wouldn't charge either, not even with a spare battery.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Motorola StarTAC dropped from motorcycle traveling at ~ 80 mph. Hit a car behind. Phone retrieved...screen cracked, but it placed a call.
Is this a troll to get people to drop their iPhones in their cappuccino?
Some years ago a friend of mine dropped my new Motorola i830 in a pot of baked beans.
O__O
It survived and kept working for almost 3 years, though I had antenna issues towards the end. Sprint extended my contract on me, so when it ended I switched.
I thought it would die blah blah because wetness blah blah and cold blah blah. Why are people --people who post on slashdot -- so completely clueless when it comes to technology, especially high technology? Why is that? Here is my point. Long before I got a degree in computer science, I studied electronics for two years in college, then worked for several years for a company that made electronic circuits for companies (basically design and manufacture of printed circuit boards and assembly of the electronics, but all the design occurred at that small 15 employee company too (and eprom software). As as cost and performance saving, and also for quality control, instead of using solder that left flux on the boards, we went with solder that had water soluable flux. The only drawback was that the solder temperature was slightly higher. At that time the company bought a wave soldering machine. Cleaning the boards (not blank but now populated and soldered) came from a Sears Kenmore(tm) dishwasher. We would put the boards in where dishes normally go and set it to wash. We made sure the heat cycle was left off, but lukewarm was best. WHAT the cellphone user cries out, how is that possible! Won't all the electronics get wet?!?!? ....Yes, that's the whole point. Read up on Texas Instruments Mach32 procurement program. How chips go through a centrifuge, gross leak test, fine leak test, thermal shock, elevated and reduced pressure, etc. READ IT! If you are unfamiliar with the words 'Hermetically Sealed', look them up. I have seen these kinds of 'oh my gosh' reports by people supposedly familiar with technology in the past. I say 'oh my gosh' too, but mine isn't referring to the technology.
and more importantly my life were back
That's sad in so many levels. Actually no: it's sad in a single, very deep, level.
My phone hasn't been through much, but I always end up breaking calculators. I'm terrible with them. I'll accidentally drop it even lightly, and crack the screen. Now I don't buy calculators that cost more than $20.
But at least I manage to save the batteries for a few minutes of fun!
Back when cell phones just made phone calls, my wife had an old Nokia with a 4-line display. It fell out of her purse, and neither of us noticed. The next morning, while parking my car, I rolled right over it, smashing the display. It still made and received calls as if nothing had happened.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
I used to work as a lifeguard. One evening while I was leaving work, as I was walking past the outdoor pool, I had to go in to do a rescue. The on duty guard was asleep (never trust the pool staff at the YMCA...), so it was all on me to go in. In full street clothes. I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag, and dove in. I got the victim out, calmed him down, and went inside to dry off. I was exhausted after the sudden intense physical activity and didn't notice that my cell phone and iPod were missing. The next morning I found both on the bottom of the pool, having spent the night in 10 feet of chlorinated water. The iPod was dead as a door nail, but the phone (a Nokia 6820) dried out and worked like a champ. Hats off to Nokia, I abused the hell out of that phone and it took it all and came back for more.
I accidentally washed my VX9000. After washing,I took the cover off and took out the battery then put it in a heated blanket for a couple of days. It work up and worked fine for about two months. Then it died a horrible death.
Jibe!
I was on the outside of the pit at a mastodon concert in D-Town when the action came my way. I was trying to take a picture at the time and didnt notice the oncoming onslaught. Needless to say my phone went flying out of my hands and skidded into the pit with me after it. After some bumping and bruising I came out of the pit - on the other side mind you with it in my hands. Only a couple of scrapes but it still worked. Good times.
Survived no problem. I later noticed that only 1 of the 5 chassis screws was still in place and never bothered to fix it. Ran for months afterward and I eventually bought an HTC Magic.
garethw
Dropped a Nokia 8210 from a Piper Warrior at about 8,000-9,000 feet over a farm. Was perfectly fine, not even a crack in the case.
Heating the water drives it into the rice faster, surrounding it with water provides more available water for rice to soak up. Rice will absorb moisture, that is why it is fatal to birds. The rice expanding from absorbing moisture in the birds stomach (gullet?). Room tempurature air would not contain enough moisture or propell the water mollecules with enough heat to truly cook rice. Sure there are better things for the job, but people have rice handy. The absolute best thing would probably be severely refrigerated air that was then dryly heated back up before passing over and through the device. The cooling would lower the vapor pressure, removing the moisture, the heat would allow it to evaporate the moisture from the device more readily.
The dead phones that come back from being dead are the scariest. Zombie phones!
My GF had a Kyocera sprint pcs phone that survived the washer and dryer. Couldn't freaking believe it. I dropped another samsung or sanyo three stories in an airport and it lived.
Ok, so the Nokia 5110 wasn't the prettiest thing ever...
I bought mine used, for about 20$ (including simcard and some load).
I dropped that thing so many times; while I was texting in the shower, texting while rollerblading, texting while playing volleyball, dropped it from a moving vehicle twice (slowly moving-about 40km/h or so). It was even thrown against a wall a couple times (not by me) and got wet in the ocean once.
In the end I gave it away, fully functional. I had replaced the front cover, and of course had a folded bill tucked against the battery to keep it tight (as did everyone else who had that model).
Best phone ever-always had signal, never broke.
My son watched his fly out of his pants pocket while on a roller coaster...
If flew towards the ground but bounced off a wood fence post before it got there.
He told me it would probably never be found and if it was, it would be in pieces.
(he was wanting a new phone because this was a hand-me-down since he lost his original one)
Well, that night I got a phone call from the amusement park. They called "dad" in the phone they found.
I went and picked it up, it has a dent in the battery, has 2 LCDs that were fine, and it works to this day...
Here's your phone son.
(LOL)
I had a Samsung flip phone (can't remember what model) about 4 years ago. It survived a full cycle in the washer (was in my pants pocket). After realizing where it was and pulling it out after the spin cycle I let it dry for a day before trying it. The screen was toast but it was still able to place dialed numbers and receive calls. It was a real trooper for the next week while I took phone interviews.
I once had some chocolate and my phone in the same pocket on a 30 degree day. Needless to say, the chocolate melted all over it. The phone still works but you know what the problem is?
Chocolate doesn't evaporate
I believe there is someone out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the Government.
This just reminds me of how useless it is for people to be losing their data all the time. The future is virtual data. I bookmark everything I install and every site I'll ever return to. And I back those bookmarks up, and put them on another drive. Therefore, when planned obselence kicks in, I'll have lost a lot less. In terms of contacts, keep a text file (it has saved my ass many a time.) In terms of music, grooveshark all your favorite artists, at least.
...in a pan of hot motor oil.
I'd had my 3GS for 2 months. Was in my shirt pocket while I was changing the oil in my John Deere tractor.
It was the first oil change on the tractor. I had run the engine for 15 minutes and had just started draining the oil when my hand slipped pulling the filter.
When I yanked my hand back and jumped up, the phone tumbled out of my shirt and did a gainer into the drain pan and sank.
Of course, I burned my OTHER hand fishing the phone out, then dropped the very slick and hot phone onto the concrete driveway.
Blotted the oil off with paper towels and used Q-tips to wick oil from the speakers and dock connector.
Let it dry for 4-5 hours and then checked it out. No harm and it's still working.
Just glad no one witnessed the impromptu slapstick routine in the driveway.
I am my own gestalt.
It's not what your phone can survive...
It's what you can convince the warranty folks of when you do break it!
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
One time I couldn't get to a toilet fast enough, and I had to shit right then and there. So I dropped my pants right in the middle of the parking lot and laid a huge log. But I didn't realize that my phone had fallen out of my pocket onto the ground, and I had actually shit all over my phone.
I was looking at the thing in disgust, but just then my girlfriend called me and without even thinking I answered the goddamned thing. That shit went straight in my ear just like a babelfish.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
What did your phone _not_ survive?
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.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
I've had two Nokia's during my AT&T contract.
Nokia 1 (6650 maybe?): Flip phone, nothing "smart" about it unless a camera and calendar count, and thats what I like in a phone. Dropped it from waist height, closed, on the face of the outside screen. That screen only displays things upside-down, the internal screen is blank. The phone works, I just can't see shit (and until I got my replacement, I was thankful and mortified to know I could navigate it blindfolded to make calls).
Nokia 2 ($20 Radio Shack AT&T Phone): No camera, no flip, terrible media-message support but, this thing is a tank. It has a hole for a strap so I used to keep it on a shoelace (sidenote: great for getting it out of a deep pocket or "man bag"), and one drunken night I hurled it by the lace high up in the air --- thud. Still on, still worked. I've dropped, thrown, tossed by accident, in puddles, and this thing won't die. Now that the paint on the buttons is scratching off, I'm starting to get super cool neon blue buttons instead of boring silver. Love it.
After all it's been through, I reckon the fluid sensors are still "ok", or?
Sorry to be gross, but the question was asked.
Took ill at work, massive, nasty diarrhea attack. As I stood up, my phone holster caught on the toilet paper dispenser and flipped my phone (a wonderful Samsung SCH-8500) into the still-full toilet...
Yes, I retrieved the phone from the toilet before flushing. Washed off the phone (and me). It still worked, even if it did smell really funky for a few months. My children called it the "D-Phone" for obvious reasons...
Read all these stories and accept that iPhones bring very bad kharma. They are cursed and should be avoided. The Nokia ju ju has brought his wrath upon those that own one and the Great God of Sony - The Son of Eric is searching out and blighting the lives of all those found to worship the lesser god Ah Pole.
Take this warning and behave wisely. Nokia is the greater god and the N97 rocks.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I dropped my Sony Ericsson T68i from my sailboat at the slip. My friend put on a weight belt, jumped in and free dove. The glow in the dark case gave it away. The battery had exploded but I put it in fresh water and drove home. Soaked it for two hours in fresh water, put it under a lamp for two hours, put a new battery in and viola, it worked.
Everyone I know has gone through about 10 phones, either through losing them, breaking them, or upgrading (which happens least). I have had the same Nokia 6030, that I got for free when I started my plan, for five years now. I would say that I also have a pretty active lifestyle that would be dangerous to a phone. I've dropped it hundreds of times, drunk-dialed/texted for years, and actually pissed on my phone by accident, and it doesn't even look two years old.
QamuIs Heg qaq law' lorvIs yInqaq puS
I can tell you plenty of things that have killed my poor abused phones though.
I was fishing under a bridge, slipped and fell in, immediately stood up and pulled my phone out of my pocket. The phone was mostly dry except a couple drops of water at first glance. Looked like my pockets kept the water out for that couple of seconds.
Hit the button, display works, yeppie!.
Turned it over to get a good look at it, a stream of water came out of the headphone jack. Looked back at the screen, it broken lines going across it. Tried to shut it down so it could at least dry out unpowered.
It looked like it powered down, however it never turned on again.
Its replacement, survived for about a week before I dropped it without the normal rubber cover I have on it. A crack formed from a little right of the top center, to about half way down on the right side in a nice little arch.
Still works perfectly however, amazingly it still accurately detects touchs even on the crack itself, which you can feel as you slide your finger over it. That surprises me a bit.
I also cracked two displays on HTC blue angles before that, and dropped one in a glass of Soda.
Actually, the bad part is, those are just the way those phones died, I can't remember all the shit they survived. I tend to treat my phones almost as roughly as I treat my hammer, they last longer than I expect in most cases only to die because of the most retarded reasons that could happen to anyone.
Every cracked screen I've had has been from dropping the phone when its the only thing in my hand, never when I've got a bunch of things or I'm in the middle of opening a door or something like that. Never scratched a screen with keys in my pocket, but I've cracked them by the phone falling off a night stand and hitting the only unpadded, hard 1/4" object within 6 feet, or fall 2 and a half inches down between my empty passenger seat in the car, hit the only piece of exposed metal down there and crack.
Its never the horrible day to day abuse that gets my phones, its always some minor fall or something stupid like falling/jumping in a lake/pool with it in my pocket.
I have a friend who had a nice Sony-Ericson (some model from just after the merger) that fell out of his car when he stopped at the mailbox, ran over it and didn't know it till a neighbor brought it too him a few days later. Put the sim card back in and it would still take calls for the most part even though it required some effort to answer as the case was destroyed and the battery contacts had to be held together by hand. Most of the button contacts couldn't be made to work, could speak and hear like a bad analog phone connection.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
My phone survived being dropped, twice, in the same day! The first time it fell, the antenna fell off and disappeared somewhere. The second time, it landed on the spot where the antenna was and the screen took enough of the impact to shatter.
That's not the impressive part, though. Any phone can get dropped and break. What's really impressive is that the phone survived my attempts to repair it. :)
Bow-ties are cool.
About two weeks ago I realized my 4th hand Nokia 5140i(Semi-ruggerized tradie phone) was missing, after a long search I found it outside in a 10cm deep puddle were it fell out of the ute while getting out in the rain. Having been there for a bit over two days.
Picked it up, shook the water from it and hitting the power button brought it immediately back to life where it registerd with the network and got an SMS..
Left it drying, case and battery out an CRT TV for a few days and it's been perfect ever since.
This same phone has survived being thrown across the room(and smashing hard against the far wall, once hard enough to leave a dint in the pine skirting board) half a dozen times while changing the bed(flicked the sheet and sent it flying) as well as drops off two story roofs and even falling out of my pocket on the motorbike at 60kmh and going bouncing and sliding down the road..
I'm not upgrading to a smart phone unless it can always handle this kind of day-to-day abuse. I don't want to spend $400 or more on a phone that can't handle being dropped off a roof without first being encased in so much rubber it can't fit in my pocket anymore. I have three of these phones, all given to me when others have upgraded. And I haven't even broken the first one.
Drop it in a cup of coffee? Plunge it in the snow?! What are you going to do next? Shoot it into space? You might consider being more carefull with your "life" :p
Last year I left it on the roof of my car and it fell off on the highway going 100k. Put it back together and replaced the trackball 'cause I couldn't find it. Three days ago I got stuck in a couple feet of snow in my truck and the phone fell out my pocket while I was hooking up a chain. It got buried and I ended up driving over it a few times as well. Next day I found it under about eight inches of hard pack snow. Had to chip it out. Still working great.
My iPhone has survived a lot since the second world war. It was ran over by a tank but there were not even a scratch on the phone. iPhone has also saved me many times: once our chopper was shot down, but I was the only one to survive the drop thanks to my awesome iPhone that absorbed the energy and I didn't even break a bone. I was also shot a couple of times but iPhone saved me by blocking the shots. There's a tiny mark on the back of the phone as a reminder of the last time it saved me. It's such a great phone, nothing else can come so close.
my older brothers iphone once took a trip through the washer. the phone itself still worked. just not the phones backlight
Oh yeah? Well my RAZR survived 2 years of life on the ocean floor, being impaled by the trident of a merfolk prince for sport, being launched towards and around the moon after offending aquatic royalty, atmospheric re-entry *and* being mailed back to me using Fed-Ex.
But seriously, I've gone through about 3 iPods and kept my single free RAZR I got with a promotion with Verizon years ago...also there's nothing really that impressive about having your phone freeze. Its not like ice/snow is that wet unless its disturbed...there's a reason Antarctica is called "the driest continent on earth" despite the fact its coated in a thick layer of water.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I went climbing with a friend, we did some ascenders practice (where you use aids to ascend on the climbing rope itself). I went up for about 40 meters, reached the top and then had to lift my leg to stand on the edge of the cliff, when I felt my cell phone slipping down. I didn't even hear it hit the ground... I thought to just let it stay there (it was a long walk down), but then someone from below yelled that he found it and brought it back to me. The battery was smashed but the display was intact (seems like the battery suffered most of the hit), surprisingly, when plugged back in, it still worked... A few days later I replaced the battery with a new one and continued working with that phone for quite a while. They don't make them like this any more...
My previous phone was a Treo 600 that I got a lot of good use out of. One day while getting out of my car I dropped it (in the case) and it landed with a perfectly flat smack on its face. I immediately picked it up and tried to turn it on. Nothing. I swore. I fretted. I pushed the on button some more. Then I got the idea to smack the thing fairly hard on the opposite side that it had fallen on. Bingo. Fixed!
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Why is this modded interesting? This is either a real troll, or a spoiled little child.
He put the fucking thing in a washing machine and then in the same post bitches that he couldn't get a new phone because they checked out the little dot. "Why is it crashing? Grr! these people are ripping me off! durp durp."
Seriously, fuck this guy. and fuck his upvoters.
Does it blend?
As the headline implies, I managed to both wash and dry my iPhone and I ran it through the dryer twice, all while it was turned on. I only found it when someone happened to be calling as I walked down the hall and wondered why on earth the dryer was beeping faintly.
I dropped my iPhone... hum... forget it... let's cut to the important part, yes? I have an iPhone! EVERYONE HEAR THAT?
I got a new phone for my wife and it survived in her purse for nearly a MONTH before it split into several pieces!
On my first night of my Ibiza holiday I dove, slightly intoxicated, into the swimming pool and stayed there for at least hour. Not sure if I also pissed in the pool.
I forgot my new iPhone was in the pocket of my swimming trousers. Next day I found my wet phone, still in the pocket, after weeks drying in the sun it worked again. I had to repace the battery though.
I bought a new iPhone in the meantime and gave the one from the pool to my girlfriend, she's very happy with it.
Up to now my phone survived all the calls I made with it.
/. I ever saw.
This is the most lamest Ask
-- Cheers!
My brother had some old phone which was annoyingly rubbish, so much so that he once scored a try (converted rugby shot - think american football, except we dont need to hold the ball up!) using his phone as a ball....
that thing flew, landed about 3 inches into the ground.... and still worked without a scratch - I think after that he may of glued it to the wall or something as some kind of weird relic type worship...
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
I don't have an iPhone you insensitive clods!
My Samsung D500 survived a full soiled-wash cycle and 1600 rpm spin. Still works fine.
ipod touch, dropped into bathtub, 2 seconds under water, centrifugal towel madness w/ screaming "no, no!", oven at 80c, sucked out humidity every 3 minutes (ouch, my lips!), repeated about 10 times - and we're running again.
phew.
and oh, how i hate those "iphone is waterproof!!!1!" videos on youtube.
-- .~.
We've got a rotary phone that we got from the phone company back when that was the only place you could get them. It's beige, which proves it's one of the newer models; a few years earlier phones were only available in black. We've moved seven times since we got it, three times long-distance, so it's been mounted and unmounted and thrown in boxes with assorted other junk and carted around and remounted, repeatedly. The receiver has been dropped from head-height to the floor WAY too many times to count or even estimate, and on several occasions the whole phone has come off its mounting (it's a wall-mount phone) and clattered to the kitchen floor (usually linoleum). I won't even try to describe the amount of abuse the cord has taken. We never bother to unplug it when there's an electrical storm (remember, wallphone: unplugging means unmounting), so it has taken the kinds of line surges that kill a modem dead, any number of times.
For all that, it's in perfect working order.
Now if I could just get the jack to stay on the wall in our current house... (some idiot mounted the jack onto plaster where there's no stud).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
....how much ice did you catch?
"I looked at it and it froze up."
It was petrified with fear.
Although not my iPhone, I once lost a Sony Ericson P900 down 4 stories on to a concrete floor. The battery, sim-card and rear cover ended up in different ends of the bottom of the stairs, but by simply reassembling it, it worked just as fine as always.
My iPhone dropped about 12 inches, if that, to a sidewalk, and the screen shattered. It looked like I'd hit it with a hammer. I caught a ride to the airport from family for an early flight, and fell asleep in the passenger seat. The phone slipped out of my pants pocket, and when I opened the door to get out it fell and hit the sidewalk.
AT&T has a 30 day warranty on the iPhone. Anything beyond that, you're out of luck and you have to talk to Apple. I'd had the phone for maybe 3-4 days beyond that period. AT&T refused to do anything. I went to the Genius Bar at an Apple store, and they told me that, gosh, it's safety glass. It's not supposed to break like that. I said, "And yet..." They told me to talk to AT&T and see if they'd do anything. I got the sense that since I didn't buy Applecare, they didn't give a shit about me. I loved my iPhone, but the royal buttfucking Apple gave me over a product that they as much as admitted to me was defective completely took away any of the respect I had for their brand. The only Apple product I might consider buying now is an iMac, because I'm a musician. When I get one, I'll be getting it used, and Apple won't see a dime of my money.
Apple has jumped the shark as a company, and no longer feel like they have any responsibility to their customers. Pull the wool off your eyes and realize they're like any other big corp.
--Obyron
Some are more sealed and solid then others.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My phone survived the iPhone - it still works just as well as it did when I bought it 4 years ago and I still don't need a new one.
Dropped my iPhone in the toilet last week. It got lodged in the S turn, and it took about 30 seconds to get out. It was on the whole time.
Took it apart and sprayed it out with some electronics cleaner to displace the water. Everything seems to be ok now except a splotch on the screen and the speaker isn't working. A new screen is $30 and a new speaker is $5 off ebay, I plan on ordering the parts today and fixing it back up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GhMYxE2Lc
2004 I had a Ericsson phone. It was pretty big on that time, but same time as most Nokia's phones.
I dropped it in accidentally in the kokko (http://www.fotopankki.fi/dispVeryLarge/6316245-Kokko) on the midsummer day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer
I noticed that I had lost the phone about 5 minutes later. I tought that I had dropped in the path when I carried few times big woods to fireplace.
I went to search the phone from the 50 meter path and didn't find it. I tought that I call it from my friends phone to find it.
I called to it and it ringed 7 times and then it hanged up and did not take calls anymore but went to answering machine. I tought that batter went empty because it was already warning few hours ago.
I said to my friend that I would come to next day to search it.
Then I noticed that in the kokko is small green flame. And right away I understanded that when I awas carrying the woods, the cell phone was slipped from my belt between the woods and gone in the kokko when throw there.
We were all amazed how the Ericcson was survived there about 10 minutes and even taken the calls until the batteries and everything else was melted totally and the cell phone did not anymore take calls.
Now every midsummer day friends are asking from me have I planned to burn my current phone for testing how well it would stand the fire or did I leave it to home for that night.
My Pantech went through the whole cycle.
I removed the battery and SIM, let it sit, and a few days later it was back to normal again.
Mine fell into the cats water bowl and was completly submergerd for at least 20 min before I relized it was there I pulled ift out took out my sim and turned it off so it could dry a couple hours later I turned it back on and it was fine actually I could hear me calls better guess it cleaned out the dirt from the speaker or something best phone I have ever had I love my iPhone
Dropped a V3 Razr in the toilet. It was off at the time. I took the battery out, dried it out over a halogen lamp overnight. Worked fine the next day.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
Cat urine = instant death. I guess the acid content is so high is looked like the PCB had been exposed to fire.
... I found my brother's cheap Timex watch seven years after he lost it at a campsite. Filthy as hell, but still working and the battery still going strong. My brother had that watch for another five years before accidentally hitting a door frame and ultimately killing the watch.
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
I was walking over to the Vietnam Memorial in DC a few years back, and I spotted a crushed cellphone being run over by several cars at the intersection. Thinking how sad it looked, I picked up the phone and flipped it open.
Though the protective glass was crushed, and the case was scratched to hell, both LCD screens still worked, and I was able to call the original owner's voicemail and leave a message saying I found his phone.
A tough phone, to be sure!
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Cooking isn't just about putting water in things, you know...
Well, no, but he already has the phone to microwave it with...
A few years ago, the kids where playing with their Kitty cat snowmobile and I took my daughter for a ride. On the way back I hit a little bump that really shook me. Well I took the same route three times until I noticed that my cell phone wasn't on my belt anymore. I stopped at the bump and sure enough, there was my cell phone, screen all messed up, not able to communicate except through the usb interface. I downloaded my contact info and got a new phone. That Sanyo CDMA phone worked good enough to get my data off, even after I had run over it with a snowmobile three times.
My old sony ericsson k800i survived a 6 month tour of Basra, Iraq. It also survived a 15 foot drop, a good dozen or more times being thrown against a wall or floor in anger, once being used as a weapon and a good drenching or three. :(
Sadly all that punishment took it's toll and she died 2 months ago at the grand old age of 3 years old
With love
The Anonymous Coward
My Google G1 fell out of my pocket when I got into my pickup and I ran the thing over. Scratched it up a bit, but otherwise- none the worse for wear. It's been dropped on concrete, stepped and gotten wet as well with no loss of function.
Ok, so I live on a tree farm in South Jersey. For some reason we're getting mad snows this season, rather than the usual 1"-then-melt situation. So, I'm at Sears early last month, loading a "Craftsman Professional" snowblower in to the back of my pickup. I jump down from the tail gate... DROID keeps going. Ouch!
Apparently, it landed and bounced... I had crawl under the truck to find it. But not only did it survive... not a scratch. I am not kind to mobile hardware in general, and I did have insurance on it, but damn... DROID DOESn't BREAK!
-Dave Haynie
I worked for a construction company for a while. My boss had a Motorola Razor V3 through AT&T which went through quite a lot before finally breaking. He traveled to NY city with his kids and said it slipped out of his hand into the street and got run over by 3 cars and a big truck before he was able to retrieve it. I personally witnessed him drop it in a cup of Coke twice while driving, it fell out of his pocket on two different occasions and was run over by a "John Deere 650" Bulldozer, he dropped it on the cement/pavement many times (100+), he also ran it over with a Front End Loader. When it finally did die, both screens were still intact, plenty of scratches, it was the second time that it had been run over by the bulldozer, this time he was driving the dozer and talking on the phone when it slipped out of his hand on to the ground, where he ran it over and snapped it in two pieces. Sim card was fine and transfered to the next V3.
Mumble mumble mum....
...thankfully pre-use. After a split-second's hesitation I reached in and grabbed it, popped on the dashboard of the car during a hot day, it works fine apart from the * (use as "space" while texting) which needs a firmer push. It's also been dropped down a flight of carpeted stairs, on to concrete floors and occasionally sat on. Not bad for an old RAZR V3.
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.
Option 1: a chunk of vegetable matter that is probably prone to getting some strain of mold or bacteria that I'd rather not ingest.
Option 2: a smooth hunk of the same metal that my dining implements are made of.
There are really people who'd prefer that their spices be in long-term contact with bits of food instead of sterilizable metal?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Stupid American.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
It didn't survive this. But then again few things do. :-)
http://www.blendtec.com/willitblend/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone3g
Option 1: a chunk of vegetable matter that is probably prone to getting some strain of mold or bacteria that I'd rather not ingest.
Option 2: a smooth hunk of the same metal that my dining implements are made of.
There are really people who'd prefer that their spices be in long-term contact with bits of food instead of sterilizable metal?
Salt isn't a spice, it's a mineral. It's also antibacterial and inhibits the growth of yeast and mold, which is why it's a good preservative. If anything, your popcorn will be safer in a full salt shaker than in the bag.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
dropped it on the ground.. shattered the glass.. I hate the iPhone.. the design makes it so easy to slip from your hands..
I dropped my Blackberry at a Kaiser Chiefs concert (during one of the jumpy bits) at the Hammersmith Apollo. I expected never to see it again, but had a quick look round at the end. To my amazement, I found it in a corner, underneath a pile of beer cans, and all that was wrong with it was that it had got a bit dirty. Now that's workmanship.
We regularly take our iPhones swimming, admittedly we double bag it and its deliberate. We found the sensors in the iPhone are useful for stroke analysis and biomechanics and its cheaper to buy an iPhone than build our own custom hardware for some applications.
Brisbane Aikido Republic
I was staying in a hotel with a group of friends. I was out on my balcony in my robe and I dropped my Motorola RAZR from the 12th floor!
It was in a protective leather case (which flew off mid-air and landed on another balcony), the cell phone kept falling and hit the ground. I saw pieces fly into the air and watched one piece fly over the wall. My friend ran down to try to find it (I think I was still in my robe). She had found the RAZR and pieced it back together! The SIM card and battery had been ejected from the phone, the battery compartment cover had been on the other side of the wall, and the leather case was working, but damn, it worked! Everything worked fine, even the camera.
The next day we were in the cab to get back to the airport, and a friend of mine says he found a leather case on his balcony! It was the same one!
That phone worked for another year, it just had a dent in the bottom of the phone.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
... but it sounds like a bad case of herpes .. really!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
About 2 years ago I crashed my Suzuki at about 40-45mph on a curve. I messed up my arm, messed up the bike, and ended a great riding day early. But, my old Samsung Fin worked when I pulled it out of my pocket after it had ground on the pavement and tore a hole in my jeans. Used it up until 2 months ago when I purchased a new phone.
I have a Nokia 6010 that has survived the years, including being thrown into a stream, two lakes, tossed from 3 or more stories on multiple instances, been ran over twice, and countless hand-drops onto cement. Still works, and holds its charge for days. (My last recharge was last night, before that was actually about two weeks ago with just using it for the Alarm clock. Also, an LG VX8500 (Chocolate). Ran over once, dropped countless times, twice in the toilet, and still works (mostly). Sadly, although it does function, some of the programs are now missing on this one (VCAST, Sync, and a few others...) Bluetooth, and Cellular access still work, as well as the music player, and all of the tools and stuff.)
I was pulling my BB out of it's holster and it slipped out of my hand and over the railing of the Chicago El Quincy stop railing. It landed on Wells street below. I ran down quickly to grab it before a car ran it over and a guy on the ground handed it to me. It must have landed flat on the back side and bounced. It still works to this day, but the screen has a blurry spot.
I was working with a guy installing some equipment on a commercial radio tower and he dropped his Motorola A1200 from 300ft. It is a flip phone and it opened up on the way down and looked like a helicopter on the way down. I was on the ground and picked it up and put it in the truck. It wouldn't come back on at that time, but the next day he put in a new battery and it still works.