I love to tinker and open things up and make them do different things, fixing what’s broken, if I can. In 2008, my wife’s digital camera screen got smashed up and I opened it up and replaced the screen, so when her parents came to stay and brought with them this smashed up Blackberry Storm road kill, asking if I could fix it, I began to think about it seriously.
What Happened?
Almost immediately, my father-in-law explained that he was joking and that it wasn’t even his phone. He found it out by the water near his condo back in Michigan. By the looks of it, it had been run over, rained on, stuck in the snow, and run over again. The screen is completely smashed beyond any hope of repair, the back plate won’t even go on anymore, and it almost seems to be held together, ironically, by the screen protector. This phone, clearly, was left for dead and unrepairable.
But It Still Works!
Although the request for repair was a joke, I decided to make it a challenge. While I didn’t want to spend any money on it, I did want to see how much I could get out of this poor little device destined for the trash bin. The first thing I did was pull out the 8GB SanDisk MicroSD card. Thanks to being snugly behind what was left of the back plate, it seemed almost untouched. I was able to easily pull some music files off it. Next, I decided to plug the phone in directly. Not only did it light up, but it connected as a removable storage device and I was able to see all the basic file storage folders, though they were empty. My favorite recovery software, Active Undelete, proved that the storage on this phone had been almost completely unused since purchase. It seemed that the owner of this phone didn’t have it long before tragedy struck.
Finally, I decided to install the Blackberry desktop software and see if I could connect to it to sync. Not only did it connect, but I was able to upgrade the phone’s software and install additional applications. While playing with it, I was able to get it to audibly prompt me for voice commands, which delighted me. This phone, beaten and smashed, seemed to work save for a screen to help make use easier.
Final Thoughts
I admit, I haven’t been a fan of the Blackberry Storm from day one. All I heard from friends who bought one is how annoyed they were with it’s use. After a while, these same Storm owners seemed much more content with it. This experience has given me a new respect for the Storm. I baby my iPhone for fear that a little rough-housing will leave me with a paper weight, so I’m pretty impressed with the durability of the Storm.
Related posts:
If you liked this Joe Tech article, subscribe to the RSS feed for daily updates.
