Is your mobile phone as tough as mine?

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Dratsab

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#38305 27-Jul-2009 20:21

I have a Motorola Razr V3xx which I purchased in December 2005. The unfortunate thing about this phone is the Krussel cases sold here only come with an absolute crap spring clip, which does nothing for retention. In the first week I owned it, the phone fell off my belt at least twice.

Since then (and despite having had ordered another Krussel retention system from overseas) my mobile has been dropped somewhere around at least 25-30 times. I kid you not! I've also taken it to Thailand twice and it sweated out 6 months with me in the Solomon Islands in 2007.

It got dropped again this morning. It was shut and fell off the training bike I'd just been working out on, using the phones inbuilt video player and bluetooth headphones for my sights and sounds :-) Anyway, it landed on the floor with a sickening thwack and the glass on the front cover now has a small crack across the bottom right corner.

Amazingly though, despite all the drops and the extremes of heat/humidity it's been exposed to, it's hardly missed a beat and is still working like it first did. I have to say, despite a lot of negative comments I've seen about this mobile, I'm hugely impressed by the toughness of it.

Anyone else out there as careless as me but in possession of a mobile which can take the knocks?

kingjj

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#239493 27-Jul-2009 22:29

I've got a Sanyo 5600 I've had for three and a half years and its had perhaps an even tougher life then yours and still going as strong as they day it was bought. I've dropped it out of a car, multiple windows, its been thrown, jumped on, smacked into pavements and walls during scuffles at work, its even been partially run over after I dropped it in a puddle on a road during a foot pursuit and its still works... wonderful technology these modern phones! IMO Motorala's have always been good for sturdiness and longevity, my step father was still using his original 025 Motorala Brick (with a HUGE battery, genuine 2 line screen and space to hold 20 phone numbers) up until the switch off when it must have been at least 6 or 7 years old (he was also a dairy farmer so it got a fair amount of tough love).

tonyhughes

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#239502 27-Jul-2009 23:17

My stepfather had a mobile, I forget the model, he was a sandblaster and spraypainter, and dropped his mobe into a bucket of paint while talking on it.

Reached in and grabbed it out, carried on talking, but the paint when it dried gummed up the charging port and keypad etc, but he said it was ringing for another day and a half till the battery went flat.

lol

rscole86

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#239510 27-Jul-2009 23:36

My old Nokia rugged phone spent around 3 hours submerged in water in my motorcycle jacket pocket, still worked like a charm. Since then its been dropped in a bucket of plaster and out of several ceilings. The only thing that went on it, was the keypad from over-use of texting.

paradoxsm

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#239523 28-Jul-2009 01:20

Those nokia ruggeds were legendary.

My toughest phones would have to be:
Sanyo 9000
Motorola 9690 (brick)
Motorola e770v
Samsung i325, I'm on my second one now as the first eventually took one licking too many but survived some amazingly stuff including being drowned twice, attacked and melted by a nasty solvent and dropped and seriously smacked around numerous times.

Worst phones, most modern Nokias, horribly cheap, soft plastics.

boby55

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#239529 28-Jul-2009 07:20

My old Nokia 2280 (The blue one) had to be the best phone at the end of its life I was wanting it to die but it wouldn't even after
2 cycles through the washing machine
Getting chucked off a 2nd story building
and falling out of my pocket many times.

in the end I just traded it in to get rid of it haha

PenultimateHop

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#239532 28-Jul-2009 07:31

Nokia N73 has been with me for 3 years and has taken a beating. The screen is cracked and most of the buttons are worn smooth, and the casing has lost most of its paint. Lives in my pocket, but regularly gets used in the rain, been dropped many times from all kinds of things, thrown, fallen. Still works as well as it ever has. Has been in 16+ countries, regularly has SIMs swapped depending on where I am, and gets worked pretty hard as a phone.

I had a Nokia 5110 that was virtually indestructible - it spent 6 years shuttling between NZ and Europe and was thrown, kicked, dropped, drowned, bounced. It still works today, but the display is completely destroyed, the battery clips are broken so it's all held together by tape.

BlackBerry 8707 was pretty faithful and survived many drops into the pavement, but was definitely showing significant casing damage before being retired.

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#239534 28-Jul-2009 08:05

Motorola t190.

I gave it hell as teenagers do

dropped under a truck, submerged in water, dropped a lot.

It got to the point where it just seemed invincible so I just hiffed it as far as I could to see.

It lives to this day and is an awesome phone but too old to use

magu

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#239542 28-Jul-2009 08:27

Funny. At my previous job, the company had a batch of Motorola V3x-es that turned out to be so bad (even after multiple replacements) that Vodafone BOUGHT THEM BACK.

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tonyhughes

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#239551 28-Jul-2009 08:55

rscole86: My old Nokia rugged phone spent around 3 hours submerged in water in my motorcycle jacket pocket, still worked like a charm.

I can only assume you were not also submerged for 3 hours while wearing it?

rscole86

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#239561 28-Jul-2009 09:14

tonyhughes:
rscole86: My old Nokia rugged phone spent around 3 hours submerged in water in my motorcycle jacket pocket, still worked like a charm.

I can only assume you were not also submerged for 3 hours while wearing it?

As much as that might please you, no I was not.

Asmodeus

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#239566 28-Jul-2009 09:35

I doubt anyone here can argue that one of the toughest (and best) phones of all time was the good old Nokia 5110/5120. Those were solid as. I still have a 5110

I currently have a Nokia 6630 and it essentially indestructible, partly due to its curved end and its brickness. If you drop it hard enough, the covers ping off and the battery comes out and that seems to absorb the shock. I've dropped it maybe 40 times in the last 3-4 years. Awesome phone

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Dratsab

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#239941 28-Jul-2009 21:19

Awesome stories! Keep them coming!!

@kingjj - have to say I've also had a few decent scuffles where my mobile's taken a knock or two as well. Came very close to losing it when it became detached one day and went for a skate along a concrete walkway into a crowd of curious onlookers. Fortunately one of them handed it back.

Damager

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#239973 28-Jul-2009 22:53

I have fond memories of my Sanyo 7400, which while in the process of trying to miraculously pick it up before it hit the ground managed to stand directly on the hinge between the screen and the keypad.

After picking up the phone, i noticed that the hinge was crushed so that the ribbon cable was now the only thing keeping the screen attached to the phone :-) It was actually quite impressive, because i could almost twist the screen in the opposite direction with no effect to the on screen display. I could also push the screen past the 180 degree position. When not in use it was fine, because the flip was closed. Taking calls in public wasnt pretty and many people wondered why was i sometimes using 2 hands to hold the phone. I sellotaped the cable to make sure there was no chance of it tearing and therefore losing signal to the screen. Unfortunately... the cable did start to tear and i was getting periodic screen outages... I managed to last about a month before the cable completely wore out..

Now that was one tough bugger of a phone :D

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n4

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#240404 29-Jul-2009 23:53

A friend of mine is actually still using an old CDMA flip phone where the flip has come off completely (including the screen). He can still make and take calls, but obviously can't text - if he gets one he has to guess who might have sent it and ring them back :-D Unfortunately I don't know the make but it might be Kyocera.

He's holding on until work give him a new XT phone next month...

Aaroona

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#241537 2-Aug-2009 19:34

I have to admit..
The Sanyo range (most of it, anyhow) CDMA wise, are/were brilliant.

I miss my old 7400. That thing was tough as guts, and NEVER missed a beat