Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Today I Broke My Phone

I am the proud owner of an HTC EVO 3D. It is the first smart phone I've ever had. I really like it. You might even say that I have grown accustomed to it.


I take 3D pictures occasionally, and they are fun to play with, but the main reason I bought this phone is because it does everything I would want a smart phone to do, and it does it well. Fast. Dual core. Lots of memory. Pretty screen. Potentially customize-able. All things that make the gadget loving geek inside of me very happy.

I didn't realize exactly how much I liked it until I dropped it.

It was in a rather minimal case when I dropped it. I am still rather happy with the case. It is slim and offers some protection for the cameras. It was this case to be precise:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053NWDO0/ref=wms_ohs_product
It even had a screen protector on it. But that wasn't enough to protect the little guy.

I dropped it from about waist height onto a linoleum or vinyl tile floor. It landed flat on the screen of the phone.

As far as damage goes, there is nothing visually wrong with it. The screen is not damaged. The glass is not cracked. No bits or pieces went flying off. The damage is much more frustrating than that.

There are now three "rows" on the touch screen that no longer register touch. One of these three rows lines up with the keyboard, so there is now about 1/3 of the alphabet that I can no longer type without rotating the screen to landscape mode. Another of the rows overlaps the bottom row of the dots on the unlock screen, making it incredibly difficult to enter the pattern to unlock the phone. (I promptly disabled that security feature once I finally unlocked it.)

So. Without the ability to type or gesture effectively, I am almost back where I was originally. I have a phone that is good at making phone calls, but not much else. This does not make me happy.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, doesn't that phone have a 1 year warranty? And didn't it come out less than a year ago? That's an interesting point. I have not rooted my phone. I have done nothing to void the warranty. But the damage is not a manufacturing defect. It is not a design flaw. It is my fault. I dropped it. I broke it.

Sometimes personal responsibility is a bitch.

I will fix it. (Follow the link for Part 2.)

3 comments:

  1. yeah. i have becoming very dependent on my smart phone. it connects me, entertains me, organizes me and captures my creativity. i have yet to drop it but know that it will happen. i fear that day.

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  2. I can not count the number of times I have dropped my phone. I dropped it so hard one time the battery cover came off and the battery popped out. I love my clunker.

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  3. I believe that you also went swimming with that phone in your pocket... and all you had to do was scrape some rust off of the circuit boards. I'm pretty sure the reason your phone is as tough as a rock is because it is about the same level of technology. :-P

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