This week's post is in praise of my cell phone. It could be subtitled the Tale of the Telephone and the Toilet. Here's why.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone and I love it. It does everything you would want a smartphone to do, is easy to use and has a pretty good camera too. Last week though it very nearly met its end when it fell in a toilet. (In my defence, I didn't actually drop it: it fell out of my pocket.) It got wet. There was a crackling sound and then the screen went dead. On impulse I ran it under the tap for a few seconds (it had just been in a toilet. Hygiene people) which probably didn't help it any.
I took the batter, sim card and memory card out and put all the bits in a tub of rice, as instructed by the internet. (Actually, first I had to go to the shop and buy some rice as I was at my sister's house and she only has microwave rice.) And I waited. Whilst I was waiting I got out my old Nokia phone and used that for a a day or two but the speaker in it no longer works so it doesn't ring and therefore isn't a lot of use as a phone!
After 24 hours I reassembled my phone. It turned on. It booted up. So far so good. But the touch screen refused to respond. By the afternoon it had turned itself off and wouldn't boot up again. I put it back in the rice, priced up a replacement and braced myself for the cost. The following day I decided to put the battery back in just to see what would happen. It turned on. It booted up. The screen worked! By early afternoon it was still working so I put my sim card back in it and it has been working ever since (touch wood).
So, the lesson from today's tale is this: keep your smartphone away from water. And toilets. But if it does get wet, the rice trick can work. Just give it two days.
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