A little story time to entertain and to possibly educate anyone else who may find themselves in trouble.
Yesterday, I went for a walk at lunchtime at work. I had my 920 in my pocket listening to a podcast with headphones in. During the walk, the podcast ended, so I pulled out my phone and started to play something else. Somehow, with the phone about chest height, I fumbled the phone and it fell. It crashed to the asphalt almost perfectly flat, the back of the phone hitting the ground. The headphones hadn't even pulled out of the jack, so I knew it was still running. I picked up it and it was no worse for the wear. I dusted it off, and examined the new road rash on the top and bottom edges of the back of the phone and cursed my clumsiness, put the phone back in my pocket and finished my walk.
Later that afternoon, I noticed that I had absolutely no cellular connection. My phone displayed No Service. Rebooted the phone and nothing. Waited until I got home and tried it from there, still no signal. WiFi and bluetooth still worked normally, and all other phone functions worked properly.
I was 90% sure that the drop had done something to cause this, but I thought of what the support chain would look like if I called Nokia or AT&T. Of course, the last step before examining hardware would be to factory reset the phone, and I had been contemplating doing that to my phone anyway, as I had accumulated a bunch of apps and user files that had filled the phone to nearly capacity, and a refresh would serve me well. So I went to Settings > About > reset your phone. Long story, short, the phone bricked. The gears spinning for hours, phone doesn't reset itself issue that I have read others experience with a 920. I spent over an hour researching, downloading the Nokia Care Suite, and downloading the firmware and restoring my phone. This process was just awful. I love Windows Phone, and it wouldn't make me choose another device, but if I couldn't explain to my mother, over the phone, how to restore the phone to factory state without a major issue, that is a serious fail. My Gen 1 Samsung Focus running WP7x did this without issue, how is factory resetting a current gen WP8 actually bricking the device???
Anyway, after all that fumbling around, the phone started properly, I got the phone firmware on, the phone booted up as though for the first time, and everything was back to normal...except of course, I still had no cellular connection. At this point, it is obviously something in hardware. My 920 was unusable in this state, so I had nothing to lose. I broke out my Torx set and unscrewed the two T5 screws on the bottom of the phone and peeled the plastic body off my phone for the first time.
As soon as I had exposed the electronics of the phone, the culprit was evident. On the left side of the phone (as you hold it, screen facing you), there is a 2-3 inch coaxial cable, about the diameter of a toothpick. This wire connects the cellular radio to the phone. It seemed at first like it was damaged, but I managed to carefully reconnect the coaxial cable to the phone, and it seated with a reassuring "click". The antenna is actually on the body of the phone, so you can't power up the phone to test for connection if the phone is still removed from the shell. I reassembled the phone, turned it on, and was very relieved to see the 3G signal display on the corner of the display.
So, when you drop a smartphone, just because the glass doesn't shatter, it doesn't mean that nothing happened. One random drop can do all sorts of things that aren't readily apparent. But luckily, there is a little bit of user serviceability left in modern consumer electronics.
Yesterday, I went for a walk at lunchtime at work. I had my 920 in my pocket listening to a podcast with headphones in. During the walk, the podcast ended, so I pulled out my phone and started to play something else. Somehow, with the phone about chest height, I fumbled the phone and it fell. It crashed to the asphalt almost perfectly flat, the back of the phone hitting the ground. The headphones hadn't even pulled out of the jack, so I knew it was still running. I picked up it and it was no worse for the wear. I dusted it off, and examined the new road rash on the top and bottom edges of the back of the phone and cursed my clumsiness, put the phone back in my pocket and finished my walk.
Later that afternoon, I noticed that I had absolutely no cellular connection. My phone displayed No Service. Rebooted the phone and nothing. Waited until I got home and tried it from there, still no signal. WiFi and bluetooth still worked normally, and all other phone functions worked properly.
I was 90% sure that the drop had done something to cause this, but I thought of what the support chain would look like if I called Nokia or AT&T. Of course, the last step before examining hardware would be to factory reset the phone, and I had been contemplating doing that to my phone anyway, as I had accumulated a bunch of apps and user files that had filled the phone to nearly capacity, and a refresh would serve me well. So I went to Settings > About > reset your phone. Long story, short, the phone bricked. The gears spinning for hours, phone doesn't reset itself issue that I have read others experience with a 920. I spent over an hour researching, downloading the Nokia Care Suite, and downloading the firmware and restoring my phone. This process was just awful. I love Windows Phone, and it wouldn't make me choose another device, but if I couldn't explain to my mother, over the phone, how to restore the phone to factory state without a major issue, that is a serious fail. My Gen 1 Samsung Focus running WP7x did this without issue, how is factory resetting a current gen WP8 actually bricking the device???
Anyway, after all that fumbling around, the phone started properly, I got the phone firmware on, the phone booted up as though for the first time, and everything was back to normal...except of course, I still had no cellular connection. At this point, it is obviously something in hardware. My 920 was unusable in this state, so I had nothing to lose. I broke out my Torx set and unscrewed the two T5 screws on the bottom of the phone and peeled the plastic body off my phone for the first time.
As soon as I had exposed the electronics of the phone, the culprit was evident. On the left side of the phone (as you hold it, screen facing you), there is a 2-3 inch coaxial cable, about the diameter of a toothpick. This wire connects the cellular radio to the phone. It seemed at first like it was damaged, but I managed to carefully reconnect the coaxial cable to the phone, and it seated with a reassuring "click". The antenna is actually on the body of the phone, so you can't power up the phone to test for connection if the phone is still removed from the shell. I reassembled the phone, turned it on, and was very relieved to see the 3G signal display on the corner of the display.
So, when you drop a smartphone, just because the glass doesn't shatter, it doesn't mean that nothing happened. One random drop can do all sorts of things that aren't readily apparent. But luckily, there is a little bit of user serviceability left in modern consumer electronics.
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