Follow Me!

I now have my own Facebook page! Please like it at https://www.facebook.com/katjaneway.blogspot.

You can follow me on twitter also @Katjaneway. If you hate twitter, like I know a lot of you do, you can still subscribe to my blog via email below this heading. I'm also on bloglovin'!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Don't forget to comment, ya trolls! Thanks :)

Friday, February 5, 2016

So I Killed my Phone

WARNING... technobabble ahead!

I dropped the whole phone contract mentality before it became cool. In February last year, I actually quit Verizon early because I was sick of paying $90+ a month for minutes and texts that I was barely using. And even though I got stuck with an extra charge, it was worth it to switch to Ting for $30 a month, as I was saving that much in bills alone.

I had to outright buy my first phone, though.

I chose a OnePlus One because I had gotten an invite, and I wanted to switch to the GSM network anyway because it was better. Plus it was pretty much the best phone on the market and only $350 for like 64GB of phone (with no SD slot but who needs one??). I wanted to get away from the highly manufactured phones like Samsung, after dealing with shit like them trying to block my ability to root the phone just so I can get rid of all the pre-installed Samsung CRAP that was taking up space on my device.

Anywho, *breathes*, I loved my OnePlus at first but it ran a modified version of Google's OS called Cyanogenmod... it was built by tech people out in the wild and was stable but very glitchy... I was constantly having issues with apps giving me shut down errors, it randomly rebooting, and the bluetooth was so finicky it drove me insane. It could never easily connect to anything; including the new scale I bought that could give me my water % and all that jazz, because in order to save "all that jazz", it needed to connect to my phone and if it did it was a miracle. I ended up weighing myself several times to try to get it to save the data and it just wouldn't. 


I'm settling pretty hard right now.


Anyway I'm kind of going off on a tangent. But my point is, I was considering replacing my OnePlus but figured I'd wait a year from now because phones (at least the ones I want) aren't cheap. However, like all the smartphones I've owned in the past (okay, 2), their battery starts to degrade about a year in and your play time starts getting shorter and shorter before it needs a charge. I figured, since I was keeping the phone for another year, it wouldn't hurt to replace the battery with a new one. That and I am going on a trip to Alaska so might as well have a good battery for whatever.

Turns out it's not as easy as it seems. The battery inside a OnePlus is a non-removable battery. Or, it's not the kind that can be easily switched out, like in my Samsung Galaxy S4. While it only cost me $16 for the battery and some tools, it kind of almost cost me my face and probably my computer's monitor (which was my workstation). I was watching a youtube video on how to replace the battery and it turns out it's GLUED to the phone. So, I was trying to pry it off but the battery was bending so I took a Flathead screwdriver and -

Almost caught my face on fire.

Okay not really. But first their was smoke for a second. And then there was a spark. Then I took it outside and contacted David because I was scared of it turning out like some kind of Hoverboard disaster. I tried once again on the safety of my glass table outside but then there was a small flame for a second.

David told me I was lucky that the battery was only charged to 45% when I had attempted this otherwise the outcome would have been much different.

I had just killed my phone.

And I didn't have a replacement.

Slightly panicked (and pissed off at the same time) I quickly ordered the phone I had been researching and wanting to replace my OnePlus with for a while now: The Nexus 6P. (If there is any reason to research shit long before you actually need to, this would be it), because it was Tuesday night and I sure as hell wasn't going to go 3 days + a weekend without a phone.


Buying the gold one makes me feel richer than I actually am

So for $450 I had a replacement on the way (that I couldn't exactly afford at the moment but oh well), but in the meantime I had cut off my left arm and I felt a bit blindsided by the loss. So on Wednesday morning I asked David if he could come over and attempt to get the battery out of my phone. I hadn't lost hope. I still had a replacement battery.

It took him all of 2 seconds to remove the battery (figures). And when he plugged the new one in.... success!! A perfectly functional phone! It was a miracle! Of course, it was too late to cancel my replacement but I was okay with that. I was getting tired of its constant bluetooth issues and at least now I have a decent backup phone in case something happens to my new one.

I say this is a win-win. (except for my pocketbook!)