Comments on: The Tell-Tale Part

By: 25 YRS MANUFACTURING

25 YRS MANUFACTURING — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:00:39 +0000

I CAN TELL YOU ONE THING, CONFORMAL COATING THE CIRCUIT BOARD WOULD COST LESS THAN A COUPLE OF DOLLARS AND WOULD PROTECT IT FROM MOISTURE AND NOT AD MUCH WEIGHT AT ALL. NOT DOING THIS ALLOWS PHONE COMPANIES TO SELL MORE PHONES.

By: DUH!!!

DUH!!! — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:44:46 +0000

Maybe you’re all missing the point that the cell phones are made cheap and the stickers are made to purposefully turn color with the slightest bit of moisture so that you the consumer, who can’t live without a cell phone, will be screwed into buying another one … it’s not the cost of waterproofing … it’s not the weight … it’s that they can and they will get your money … we have 5 cell phones … i work outside … maybe mine got wet … my wife works indoors hers did not get wet … my son’s did not get wet, and neither did my mother-in-laws … but guess what … 7 months after purchase all stickers are red … how? … it’s a BS tactic by greedy manufacturers to get more money … you who design cell phones … get a new job, ’cause you’re not very good at the one that you have … stop trying to defend the company who probably doesn’t pay you what it should be paying anyway while the Fat Cats at the top are treuly making the big bucks … SELL OUT!!!

By: BP

BP — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:52:17 +0000

Once upon a time I did mechanical development engineering of GSM handsets. If you want to prevent water from getting into the phone expect to pay considerably more for a phone and expect them to be good deal larger. forget about things like sliders, flips, etc. Forget about light weight thin walled housings.

Every hinge, every mechanical joint would need seals. The housings would need to be sealed. The keypad would have to be isolated and seals would be needed to prevent water from getting past it. Keeping the seal intact after being dropped and probably during impact would be another challenge. Much of how a phone absorbs impact is how the housings flex on impact. That flex is an enemy of sealing the phone.

I could go on, but I think it’s pretty clear where I am going with this. The only customer (Handset makers sell to the carriers for the most part) out there that might pay for a phone like this would be the military.

It’s not that it couldn’t be done, it would just be expensive and have several drawbacks. With these drawbacks most people would just buy the much cheaper, fancier, slicker looking phone and think to themselves that they would never drop it in water.

By: chris

chris — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:46:06 +0000

IF YOUR PHONE GETS WET READ THIS!!

i’ve tested this on an old phone and if you get your phone wet and your water detection sticker turns red get a q-tip and put a drop of bleach on it and let is sit until the sticker is white agian…

By: GERALD

GERALD — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:07:04 +0000

wat do i do if my fone been water damaged for about 2 or 3months ..!
and it is a metro pcs strobe..!

By: Frank the Tank

Frank the Tank — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:42:31 +0000

take bleach poor it into a lid take a q tip put on in , in the bleach and dab the red spot and watch as cthe red from the water dis a pears and it will turn compleatle white and take the other end and dry up the wet ness of the bleach and now your warrenty is no problem try it you will not hurt your phone at all

By: Freesample

Freesample — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:12:49 +0000

May 2nd 2008
I have been having problems with my Samsung phone not being able to hold a signal. Unless I am standing under a Tower it is very difficult to have enough signal to carry on a conversation. When I bought these phones one of the biggest deciding factors was their durability and warranty according to AT&T anyway. It has been through 7 different AT&T retail stores for diagnostics including having the case opened without any mention of the imposing red dot that is so easily spotted. I operate a small Trucking Company and we need our phones for everyday operations and even with the additional insurance that I am being charged for each month AT&T still says that they will not replace the phone due to the warranty being voided for water damage. My current cell plan runs me $2300.00 each month and they wont even replace a phone. I think it is time to go elsewhere for service, if anyone has any constructive advice or criticism please feel free to fire away.

By: ashlen

ashlen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:32:29 +0000

ok i just got my phone really wet and its mostly dry and it kinda works i think if i wait like 2 hours for it to dry bettter it will work but how do i know it will work? and not just the little sticker that changes colour when wet is still wight does that mean they wouldnt know it got wet or what… what i really want to know is if my phone will still work?? Please help!!!

By: Wes

Wes — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:16:48 +0000

Well I have to say this. Someone stated earlier that people should not be stupid enough to drop their phones in water. Here’s my issue, (and I think this is where the companies get over on us)I have never dropped my phone in water but I noticed after only having my phone 3 days that the water damage sticker behind the battery was red!!! I got my phone (LG envy) in July. I live in the southeast of the U.S., anyone who lives here can tell you that it gets extremely humid here during the summer months. I believe the humidity is what the sticker detected. That is not my fault, I can’t control mother nature but if my phone malfunctions at some point I’m screwed. I’ll have to pay to get another. I agree, a better design or a better detection device should be used.

By: Matt (different Matt)

Matt (different Matt) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:28:02 +0000

It seems to me that the sticker is the result of pretty good design. It’s inexpensive, simple and laughably easy to interpret. To say that the real solution is to make a waterproof phone seems beside the point. Motorola should build the phone so you can drop it in the toilet for 10 seconds?

And no, a phone isn’t like a watch or even a GPS device. It has speakers and microphones and gives off quite a bit of heat that it has to release somehow.

By: alan

alan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:21:37 +0000

hello i have another question my razor says it has water damage this showed up when i droped it last nite but it was nowhere near water…i just droped it and the screen is messing up i was told 2 put a magnet on the top right cornor of the numberpad and i did it reset my screen or somthing of the matter and now its working but i dont knw if it will keep working is this really waterdamage?

By: no name magee

no name magee — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:17:09 +0000

Um, I have a v3m motorola razr. and my ‘water damage’ sticker is bright red. Does that mean my phone is going to like break soon or something?

By: natasha

natasha — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:52:48 +0000

I have actually discovered away to reverse the effects of the tell tale red/pink sticker. it is quite simple actually. Just e-mail me at vanessap1@cbemail.ca and i shall tell you how.
Again once your sticker has turned red or pink i have discovered a way to return it back to normal.

By: natasha

natasha — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:52:45 +0000

By: linnaeus

linnaeus — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:42:44 +0000

WATER DAMAGE CELLPHONE

anything about cellphone this might help

http://mobcellphone.blogspot.com/2007/10/water-damage-cellphones.html

By: Judy

Judy — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:49:37 +0000

First I would like to state that the majority of these phones are extremely cheap to produce and replacement costs, in and of themselves, are an outrage. This water damage sticker scheme is just another way to make/steal a bunch of money from customers who are acting in good faith.

I had no warrunty but my phone was not working properly so I called TMobile. They sugary sweet and indicated it was absolutely no problem to have this phone replaced. They asked me all the standard questions such as “was the phone cracked, had it been dropped in water, has it been damaged in any way by me”. Like all the other people who have been ripped off by this scheme, the answer was “No”.
Much to my surprise, on my next bill was a charge for $100 (this was a cheap $10 phone by the way).

My contention is, if they took the time to ask me all of the questions about possible damage, why then did they not ask me to remove the battery and look at the little sticker to see if it had turned a different color. I feel like I was set up to be ripped off. This is a 2 part scheme. The first part is the sticker itself, designed to invalidate your purchase or warranty by normal use and the second part is directing customers to send back phones without properly instucting them on examining this easlily found little white or pink or red dot.

By: rich

rich — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:23:10 +0000

ive had a phone (w850i) stop working from moisture damage through leavin it in the car over nite, now surely sony ericsson should think about a lil protection, it would be nice.
Also ive done a bit of plumbin in my time and know that all that stops most of ur plastic drain pipes from leaking is a bit of spongy rubber, now surely that could be used in some way to prevent water damage, i know it obviously aint that simple but it cant be too hard for them either. every1 knows prevention is better than cure but the phone companies obviously prefer u to damage ur phone so u end up paying for 2 phones instead of 1.
the only way they will change is through bad media any1 know n e 1 high up in the media to start this frenzy off.
i personally have had enough of all phone companies treatin me the customer like crap, the only ppl that could do something about this are way too loaded to care so as usual we’ll av to shut up and hand over our money.

By: blorg

blorg — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:55:16 +0000

I had my 2 month old Razr V3 in my pocket while mowing the lawn, in August, last summer…. red dot syndrome, but then again, the phone started acting CRAZY a few minutes later, so this was a real moisture issue, not an attempt by a manufacturer to duck a warranty replacement. Seems I perspire too much, at least, according to Motorola designers I perspire too much.

I understand these phones are actually held together in places with double sided adhesive tapes (I’ve reviewed a ‘how-to’ on replacing the inside plastic screen in V3 Razrs, this is not coming from my imagination). Tapes are not easily applied in a perfect seal manner (not even by inexpensive chinese labor).

I, too, would prefer better moisture resistant phones, and Sprint seems to have industrial grades of phones.

FWIW, I’m on my 3rd Razr, this one has NO visible moisture dots on the phone or my battery; must all be internal, nowadays.

By: zoephoenix

zoephoenix — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:12:52 +0000

Okay, the purpose of this article (since someone said they weren’t sure) is so that people know that there is a possibility that their warranty can be voided due to no fault of theirs: i.e. the whole “humidity can set off the phone sticker” issue. Yeah, sure, there are people who will try to misuse this information and try to get a new phone after dropping theirs in a toilet or something, but I seriously doubt that if you completely submerse your phone, the sticker will not turn red if you put a flimsy little piece of tape over it. So, the PURPOSE of the article is just what I said… to inform people that your warranty may be voided due to no fault of your own. If a little humidity is enough to set the stickers off and screw me out of the $300 I would need to replace my phone, then I should have a right to know about it and be able to cover it up. As said before, if a phone has been actually submersed in water, then the tech can usually tell. The sticker is just another way to screw the consumer out of money, for the most part. The sticker makes it easy for the tech to say “oh, it’s water damaged” without even really looking at it. It’s easier to say that than it is to actually LOOK at the phone.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:29:57 +0000

My motorla razor has a red sticker on the inside of the back cover and on the battery. Of course my sticker on the inside cover turned red, but i never recall it being in water. The funny thing is that the red dot on my battery isn’t red. So what the f, if a prick of water gets on a white dot a phone warranty is void. I think phone companies need to find a new way to judge water damage, because this is absurd.