I currently own a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. It’s not even 2 years old, but I cracked the screen glass 4 months ago, it’s pretty much fully destroyed. Luckily I have a screen protector on top of it so I was able to sporadically fix it with some tape. It’s just not worth it to exchange the screen - too expensive, so I could as well buy another used phone. But I’m gonna keep this phone alive until its end in November.
Except for the screen glass it usually works perfectly fine. I’m running CM11 by novafusion on it because there is no official CM support for this device. They even released a Stagefright patch (Officially the last update by Samsung was for Android 4.3 I think).
Yep, Got an iPhone 4s which is slowly heading to the grave. I think its testament to the quality of the older apple products (more or less 4 years old now) that its still going but the latest software update has really rinsed the battery life so I can’t use push email etc. hoping the Fairphone 2 will have significantly longer longevity so I can get 5 years out of it!
@huskers I repaired the glass screen of an S3 mini for less then 20€. If the screen is still working, you could try that to. There are repair kits on ebay but you will need some more tools, like in those . Repair was cumbersome, but after some hours the phone was transformed from barely usable to perfectly usable. Might be worth to consider for your phone as well.
I really considered doing that after the glass broke. But I’m scared to break the display itself when removing the glass or not being able to correctly attach the new one. I have never done something like that before.
As long as it works it’s fine for me. The risk is too high to break it and once I have my new FP2 I’ll either use this phone for software experiments or give it to recycling.
EDIT: I might also consider repairing the screen and giving the phone to someone else for the cost of the repair if I succeed.
For me, it is not “my” phone which is dying but my boyfriends smart phone. In fact I borrowed his very first dumb phone (more than 10 years old) when my last phone broke down. This dumb phone still works flawlessly even though the battery life is somewhat diminished - what a surprise - and the stocking capacity of simple messages is limited which can be annoying from time to time.
So now I’d like to give him this one back because his screen is dying step by step (one corner/side after the other) so that he cannot properly text, take calls or add contacts anymore. I really hope it will survive until I get my FP2…
I got a Nokia 1100, my third mobile phone after owning previously an Alcatel 311 and then my first Nokia 1100. I bought the second Nokia second-hand, when the first started functioning less, but after many years that second hand one is starting to get problems as well. But I still kept the first one and now my current phone is made out of bits from both the old (newly bought) and the newer (second hand) bought Nokia. I’ve picked the most readable keyboard, the best battery and the best phone itself and don’t even know any more what bit came from what phone, but it’s nearing the end of it’s life.
Another apparatus that’s dying down is my mp3-player, a SanDisk SansaClip+ that I have got for 4 years come next week, but is frequently not responding or stops playing after a restart needs to be done. With a smartphone, especially the 5" Fairphone 2 being a lot bigger than the old dumb Nokia 1100 that sits in my trouser pocket next to the SansaClip+, I’m thinking of using the Fairphone 2 as a music player as player and replace both apparatus with a single Fairphone.
I’m a big SansaClip fan. Good quality, cheap, and lightweight. The FP is often too heavy for me. The clip is lighter than my headphone cable So I still use both … and the Rockbox software on the clip.
I too like the quality, price and lightness of the Sansa Clip. I’m a bit disappointed about it’s durability though, I’d though it would last me for more than four years. It got vulnerable in the very beginning however, when it died down after dropping on a laminate floor from a height of 1 meter. I sent it back for repair and after repair (with 4 weeks of waiting) it came back functioning again, but ever since that repair, it had a tendency - increasing with the years - of freezing when touched while playing. Just a small fingertouch to the case and it freezes, needing to be restarted for it to start playing from where it left off (or sometimes the previously played song).
I am using a Samsung Galaxy Ace as my third phone in my life. It was introduced in 2010 but has never made me happy. There was never an update available beyond the pre-installed Android 2.2 Froyo so I had the day of my life when I managed to get a CWM 4.3 (Jelly Blast) on it. taktiK would not work.
This summer I was using my phone for navigation in heavy rain on the bike and for some reason was surprised that afterwards its functionality was greatly compromised. It would not detect anymore if being charged or not or what the battery state is at all, it would always be in headphones mode so play no loud ringtones or sounds and the volume up button only responds occasionally. I was able to figure out those problems but saw that it’s time for something entirely different (ordered FP2 after having watched the project and community for quite some time).
The battery of my phone holds 18 hours on lowest screen brightness, without Wifi/3G, with WhatsApp in use every now and then.
Even though I dropped it a hundred times in its life, the screen would never shatter but finally (it was somehow a relief) it fell down in the train and the screen broke.
Biggest downside of the phone: 150MB internal storage. Every time I have to update Whatsapp I needed to uninstall another app. So I’m down to only a few apps and the storage is always full.
Because I always wanted to keep the phone as a music player, I wonder right now if I should replace battery (7€), the screen (10€) and the volume keys (10€) and own a nice music player. What do you think?
Missing my good old Siemens A70 though…
I had an iPod before I got my FP1, but I quickly switched to the Fairphone as my music player. I think you’ll soon find it uncomfortable to carry two device. You could however use it as a stationary device at home, for example connecting it to loudspeakers.
I also have an S3 mini (with omnirom 5.1 by golden-guy, great ROM for the mini), nearly three years old now, which I just cracked the screen in september. As it’s only one crack across, it’s running fine so far. I checked the instructions on how to exchange the cover glass, but I also never did something like that, so I will probably try it only when I’m fully on the FP2. I also have an old Google Nexus from 2012, which really shows its age…
Probably I will experiment with the FP2 first, maybe have a look at Jolla and what will be provided, but if stock Android on FP2 will have permissions control I might stay with stock. Will see Haven’t decided about the fate of the S3, though. As our local zoo collects old phones for having another monetary subsidy I might at one day depose it there…
My own Nokia 1100 is nearing the end of it’s long long life as well. If I press on the side of the phone too hard during a phone call, the not-so-tight-fit-anymore between case and phone can cause the connection to be aborted.
I thought it would be a good idea to bump this topic, for people wanting to share their distress of the wait, because of failing unfair old phones - and the delay in deliveries of most orders till January (only a few hundred with black covers will make it before Christmas it seems).
The Sansa Clip+ I wrote about a month ago has already died. As a music player, I will take my old Creative MuVo2 with 4,5 GB HDD (of a time when flash memory mp3-players would only go as far as 1GB) on the journey by train to celebrate Christmas with my family. I’ve already taken the micro-SD card with my music out of the broken SansaClip to put in the Fairphone when it gets delivered (which I hope will be before the 2nd of January, as that is my birthday - it would make a nice present to myself).
At bit off-topic, but what happend to it? Just nosy … because I got two under hard use and they’re still working and I’m pretty impressed. Just an idea, you might have a different issue: Sometimes people just forget that the Clip+ has a “hold” function (against accidentally touching the buttons while walking). Normally charging and pressing the “up”/power button for a longer time helped a lot of people.
Mechanical failure. The volume knob stopped working properly. I can tune the volume down, but not back up again. Pressing the volume up button harder, only made the whole unit get pushed deeper into the case, the knob is hardly reachable anymore. I tried to open the case to see if I could slide the circuit board and the buttons connected to it back in it’s proper place, but it’s not as servicable as the FP2 will be, I couldn’t get it open, me prying with a screwdriver only made the situation worse. And with the warranty gone and my experience that sending it back a). took a lot of time (over a month before I got it back) and b). solved the problem of the player not functioning at all but getting it back from service with an over the years increasing tendency to freeze at the slightest touch to the case, made me decide not to bother with it any more and throw it away. It’s in the box with discarded electronics now, waiting for me to deliver it to the ‘environment street’ as they call it in the Netherlands.
So I still use both … and the Rockbox software on the clip.