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phone: fixed
After a recent night of revelry I woke up to discover that my phone was apparently dead. Poking the power button elicited a brief lighting-up, but neither plugging it into the charger nor hooking it to a USB port caused any further activity.
Now, I'm fairly paranoid about hanging onto potentially unrecoverable data; being - up until recently - a Linux Laptop person I've my own collection of silly toys for pulling the data off my phone on a reasonably regular basis, on top of which my curmudgeonly refusal to use the PIM features of any given phone I've owned in the last decade means that all my contacts are actually on the SIM card. Add to that the fact that I've never thrown out a phone after getting an upgrade, and you arrive at the conclusion that a dead phone is not exactly a major inconvenience for me.
However.
I'd not run the phone backup in about two weeks, and there were a few photos on the phone that I wanted to grab, and aside from all of that if the phone was dead I wanted to make sure it was in factory-reset state, with no trace of me or my contacts on it (calls and SMS dialled/sent/received, etc.). Aside from all of that, I rather like this phone, and although I'm due an upgrade I'm not really keen on anything in Vodafone's current range, so I'd rather keep this phone a bit longer if I can.
I poked at the phone some more and determined that unlike previous dead/comatose phone events, I had not caused it to become beer-sodden or otherwise stressed, and so the problem was either the charging circuit or the battery. My bet was on the battery.
So I visited a local Vodafone franchise. These are the most minimal franchises you'll see: small stores, rarely more than two people and more frequently one; a limited range of product (although not quite so limited stocks); and no real help for anything whatsoever. The guy did some dead-chicken-waving on the charger to ensure it wasn't the source of the problem, and then basically said he couldn't help me - sending the phone to the repair people would include it being wiped "for Data Protection reasons" (hardly seems to be protecting my data, but I digress) and would take a week or so to happen, plus the phone was out of warranty. I declined, saying I might call to the repair centre myself, knowing it was unlikely since it's not exactly conveniently located - Sandyford is located some 10 miles south of the city centre and the office I work in, and the repair people don't do weekends. I asked if he had a spare battery I could try, but he didn't; the phone is at least 18 months old, and therefore they don't have anything like it in stock. Or if they did, he wasn't going looking for it. I will also pass over the fact that there's a good chance that he had a phone in stock which took an identical battery, because while the phone manufacturers are wild about new shell designs, they're not quite so wild about new internal components and the associated cost of retooling and so on and so forth. Batteries, cables, and other auxilliary bits seem to last quite a while, design-wise.
I did a little more poking about online and identifed a few places where I could pick up a battery at prices varying from UKP25 down to about UKP9. Noone in Ireland seemed to stock batteries. One site offered Moto-branded and non-Moto branded; the former would normally cost more, but they had a clearance sale on. I noted a few options, then went looking at phone repair companies in Ireland in the hope that someone would have one closer to my office. Lo and behold, FoneMenders.ie.
Actually, don't bother. Their supposed walk-in center was about as helpful as the Vodafone franchise. The guy behind the counter told me that they'd send my phone to location unspecified for repair (wouldn't it be funny if it was the same location in Sandyford?) which would take two days, then another two to get it back, and in the repair process they would again wipe my phone. He didn't offer to check the charger or battery, despite inhabiting a much larger shop with (one would imagine) a much wider selection of phones what with not being tied to any one operator. FoneMenders: FAIL.
So on Thursday last, I figured that I'd go spring for a battery. I found someone offering prices in Euros - foneshop.ie - with cheap enough shipping that I'd only be out €20 if it turned out to be some other problem. The battery turned up in the office yesterday while I was out sick, so I collected it today and stuck it in the phone this evening.
Condition: VICTORY.
The phone lit up immediately, and on plugging it into the charger, the charger icon started cycling. Once it tells me it's fully charged I'm putting my SIM card back into it and we're done.
So, in summary: I rock. FoneShop rocks. FoneMenders and Vodafone both suck.
Now, I'm fairly paranoid about hanging onto potentially unrecoverable data; being - up until recently - a Linux Laptop person I've my own collection of silly toys for pulling the data off my phone on a reasonably regular basis, on top of which my curmudgeonly refusal to use the PIM features of any given phone I've owned in the last decade means that all my contacts are actually on the SIM card. Add to that the fact that I've never thrown out a phone after getting an upgrade, and you arrive at the conclusion that a dead phone is not exactly a major inconvenience for me.
However.
I'd not run the phone backup in about two weeks, and there were a few photos on the phone that I wanted to grab, and aside from all of that if the phone was dead I wanted to make sure it was in factory-reset state, with no trace of me or my contacts on it (calls and SMS dialled/sent/received, etc.). Aside from all of that, I rather like this phone, and although I'm due an upgrade I'm not really keen on anything in Vodafone's current range, so I'd rather keep this phone a bit longer if I can.
I poked at the phone some more and determined that unlike previous dead/comatose phone events, I had not caused it to become beer-sodden or otherwise stressed, and so the problem was either the charging circuit or the battery. My bet was on the battery.
So I visited a local Vodafone franchise. These are the most minimal franchises you'll see: small stores, rarely more than two people and more frequently one; a limited range of product (although not quite so limited stocks); and no real help for anything whatsoever. The guy did some dead-chicken-waving on the charger to ensure it wasn't the source of the problem, and then basically said he couldn't help me - sending the phone to the repair people would include it being wiped "for Data Protection reasons" (hardly seems to be protecting my data, but I digress) and would take a week or so to happen, plus the phone was out of warranty. I declined, saying I might call to the repair centre myself, knowing it was unlikely since it's not exactly conveniently located - Sandyford is located some 10 miles south of the city centre and the office I work in, and the repair people don't do weekends. I asked if he had a spare battery I could try, but he didn't; the phone is at least 18 months old, and therefore they don't have anything like it in stock. Or if they did, he wasn't going looking for it. I will also pass over the fact that there's a good chance that he had a phone in stock which took an identical battery, because while the phone manufacturers are wild about new shell designs, they're not quite so wild about new internal components and the associated cost of retooling and so on and so forth. Batteries, cables, and other auxilliary bits seem to last quite a while, design-wise.
I did a little more poking about online and identifed a few places where I could pick up a battery at prices varying from UKP25 down to about UKP9. Noone in Ireland seemed to stock batteries. One site offered Moto-branded and non-Moto branded; the former would normally cost more, but they had a clearance sale on. I noted a few options, then went looking at phone repair companies in Ireland in the hope that someone would have one closer to my office. Lo and behold, FoneMenders.ie.
Actually, don't bother. Their supposed walk-in center was about as helpful as the Vodafone franchise. The guy behind the counter told me that they'd send my phone to location unspecified for repair (wouldn't it be funny if it was the same location in Sandyford?) which would take two days, then another two to get it back, and in the repair process they would again wipe my phone. He didn't offer to check the charger or battery, despite inhabiting a much larger shop with (one would imagine) a much wider selection of phones what with not being tied to any one operator. FoneMenders: FAIL.
So on Thursday last, I figured that I'd go spring for a battery. I found someone offering prices in Euros - foneshop.ie - with cheap enough shipping that I'd only be out €20 if it turned out to be some other problem. The battery turned up in the office yesterday while I was out sick, so I collected it today and stuck it in the phone this evening.
Condition: VICTORY.
The phone lit up immediately, and on plugging it into the charger, the charger icon started cycling. Once it tells me it's fully charged I'm putting my SIM card back into it and we're done.
So, in summary: I rock. FoneShop rocks. FoneMenders and Vodafone both suck.