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?"

Comments

A full season in the snow

[its]

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.

Re:A full season in the snow

[Walzmyn]

I had an old just-a-phone get ran over by a loaded 18-wheeler. I had laid it down on the tire when I climbed the side to check the load and forgot it. It cracked the screen, but still made calls.

Re:A full season in the snow

[catd77]

Wow, my phones just break on me for no reason. I keep mine in a case with screen protectors on ecery screen. I've already had to replace it once because it wouldn't shut off. My phone before that I took amazing care of and it stopped making calls after a year. All my phones hate me!

Re:A full season in the snow

[im_thatoneguy]

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

Sony ericsson

[isthisnametaken]

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.

dropped it in water

[BLAG-blast]

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.

Zune

[xbeefsupreme]

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.

none at all

[jamesh]

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 :)

A run through the wash cycle

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Washing Machine & Dryer

[Evil Shabazz]

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.