by 3ICE on Sat Feb 14, 2015 7:48 pm
R.I.P. — my phone died this week. I know I'm bumping old news and everything, but this is a newsworthy story in itself. Here is part of an email I sent to a friend about it all:
p.s.: I am an accident-magnet it seems. As you know I recently lost all my data on my SSD. Still getting over that... It died so mysteriously, and for no reason I can see... And now this; Just last week my brother sat on my phone (it was in my coat pocket, on a chair) and broke it. Totaled. The screen is thoroughly cracked, leaking black LCD fluid and the stain it leaves behind is growing day by day. A few days ago you could still barely see one or two dozen rows of pixels, but even that worked only if you pressed down near/on the screen real tight. Just enough for me to try and copy some of my files to the SD card because I mostly remember where everything was, and could use the phone somewhat blindly. Total Commander to the rescue. It's dying fast though. Today I can't see anything except the white backlight, the crack, and the gigantic black spot.
This is my data loss #2. All my contacts, todo lists, notes, pictures, music, documents, ebooks, passwords, SMS, call history, saved phone numbers, hundreds of apps, my programs, saved games, high scores, alarms, timetables, launcher, my unique and cool phone configuration... Gone. I couldn't copy everything. And there is no way to backup SMS. And even though now I know how, I cannot rescue my contacts anymore. (I would have to save them one by one as a vCard export to the SD card. Too bad I cannot see anything anymore, so that route is blocked.)
It was a Windows Mobile 6 too, with a tilting touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY hardware keyboard — awesome for blind typing, and even a stylus. They don't make or sell that kind of phone anymore. It had four names: HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt / HTC TyTN II / T-Mobile MDA Vario III. It was worth 250 000 HUF (929$), maybe even 300 000 HUF with my modifications. Lasted 5 years in perfect condition. Until its sudden and tragic end last week.
Blew all my spare money on buying a new phone. Unfortunately it's not as good as my old phone was. It's a Lumia 930 for 150 000 HUF. Windows Mobile 6 was the last good version of Windows Phone. Version 8 and 8.1 of Windows are terrible for phones, might as well say -8 or -8.1 (negative.) Everything is on the tightest security lockdown Microsoft could come up with. No access to the file system or behind the scenes stuff. No fun to be had at all. My inner hacker is devastated. I can't even root it or hack around in the registry / Windows folder. Battery life is barely a day. Old phone was good for a week between charges IIRC.
Anyway, enough complaining. This postscript is already longer than my actual email. I'll be just fine.
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