Entry for January 08, 2008 – Death of my favorite phone

After I plugged in a cheap headset to my phone, the microphone stopped working… When I plugged the original headset in, it worked… so I figured the headset jack was messed up and I might be able to fix it. Getting this phone apart was a chore, but of course someone had already figured it out and posted the how-to on the Internet. I screwed up and pryed in the wrong place and knocked one of the tiny surface-mount resistors loose. I touched it with a solder iron, and then tested the security of my handy work with a little screwdriver, and the whole component scraped off. I fought with it for a while, then gave up after my wife convinced me this was a hopeless battle. (the smallest glob of solder I could get on my iron was bigger than the whole resistor)

Very depressing, this phone had it all. Bluetooth, IR, Windows (outlook, active sync, media player), charged and synced through a standard USB port, memory card, external antenna connection, long battery life, tiny size, big screen… It was a PDA, MP3 player, and phone all in one, 3 years before anyone heard of the iPhone!

I don’t know what I’m going to do now.

In the picture below, the rogue resistor is sitting on the dot of the first “i” on the mini SD card at the bottom of the picture.


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2 Responses to Entry for January 08, 2008 – Death of my favorite phone

  1. Brandon says:

    So let me get this straight… After a 'cheap' headset didn't work and while the 'original' headset worked just fine – you tore open the expensive phone with on-board AI computer, laser beam & spare TP holder in an attempt to make the 'cheap' headset work? ENGINEER.

  2. Brian Gallimore says:

    Let me clarify. After the cheap headset was used, the phone was not usable (the microphone stopped working) unless the original headset was plugged in.

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