My Phone Dies
My phone suddenly stopped working.
I must admit, I have been abusing my phone a lot lately, playing games nonstop and overheating the phone.
I was on my laptop when I looked at my phone and realized that it was frozen. I took out the battery and tried turning it on but nothing happened. I changed the battery, but still no luck. I tried plugging the phone into the charger but nothing came up.
My V20 that just died
I tried Googling, and it did seem like this has happened to some others on the same phone. It sounded like some hardware got fried due to overheating.
I took it to uBreakiFix near me without much hope, and was told that the motherboard probably needs to be replaced, which probably isn’t worth it.
Smartphoneless Life Begins
There are two things that I really want in my phone – Android, and removable battery. The latter is really hard to come by these days as all of the major smarphones have moved away from removable batteries. I just personally find it much easier to have extra batteries on hand when I travel, rather than having to keep charging my phone. So I started looking into what’s available out there.
I wasn’t in any hurry to get a new phone right away, though. Since I was home most of the time anyway with the Shelter-in-place order in effect, there really wasn’t any immediate need for a phone. But I did need that calling functionality of a phone, for emergencies, on Thursdays when I deliver meals to seniors, and in case a recruiter wanted to talk to me. That’s when I remembered the flip phone I bought in Korea.
I took out the SIM card adapter I bought a long time ago, and put in my SIM in the flip phone. And voila! Calling and texting worked fine.
Some Minor Inconveniences
It’s been about three weeks since my phone stopped working, and other than some minor inconveniences, I’m doing perfectly well without a Smartphone.
Some minor inconveniences include:
- Google Map – I don’t have built in navigation in my car, so I’ve just been using the Google map on my phone. But even when I had my phone, I didn’t really use navigation; I preferred to look at the map and study it before I started driving. I didn’t want to be too dependent on the navigation. As a result, I know this area pretty well, and I can get by without Google Map. I ask for any changes to senior meal delivery locations beforehand so I can memorize the route before I head out. I even went to the bookstore and grabbed a Norcal map to leave in my car just in case.
- Camera – The flip phone does have a camera, but it’s really bad quality. I started getting into a habit of carrying my camera with me when I go out, in case something (i.e. an accident) happens and I need to take pictures.
- Video chat – So when I do video chat with others, I normally used my phone to show my video and used my laptop to share screen and take notes. This was because I had my laptop connected to the monitor which didn’t have a webcam. Now, without a smartphone, I need to use the built-in webcam on my laptop, forcing me to use the small laptop screen instead of the monitor.
Other Workarounds
- Kakaotalk – Thankfully there is a desktop version of Kakaotalk, so I use that to communicate with others. I am home most of the time anyway, so this is not a problem.
- Spoon Radio App – I have been using this app to listen to my friends’ live broadcasts, and although I can still listen using the web browser, I can’t do a broadcast myself, upload a recorded cast, or participate in a live call using web browser. These can only be done on the app. I have a Chromebook that I got to bring with me for writing diaries when I went to Africa. I tried going to the Play Store on my Chromebook and downloaded the app, and I tried doing a test broadcast and it worked!
- Philz Coffee – So it seems like I can only order ahead using the app, so I tried installing it on my Chromebook and there it was, I was able to order using the app.
- Fit On – My friend recommended this app to me for working out at home, and I had a couple exercises still to go for a challenge I signed up for. So I tried to see if they had a web browser version, and they did! There are some things you can’t see on the web version, but I can still watch the videos.
- Duolingo – I was trying to break my previous streak record, but I missed a couple days after my phone stopped working and my streak broke, sadly. But I can still do the exercises on web browser, and it seems like there is a timed practice on web browser that I didn’t see on the app.
- Music in my car – I took out my 3rd gen iPod nano that I used to play music in my old Civic. I need to restart it once in a while, but it still works! 🙂 I love singing along to my playlist while I drive, so this was very important.
The Good
So I was able to find a workaround for most of the apps, and now that I’m forced to not play mobile games and to not be looking at my phone the whole day, it feels like the quality of my life has just gotten better. Ironic in a sense, since smartphones were meant to improve our lives. But I can definitely take this as an opportunity to stay away from smartphones for the time being and spend that extra time on some other things. It’s always sad to see something break, but I feel like more good has come from it. I will eventually need to get a new smartphone, but I’ll hold it off until I really need one.