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| The new Nokia Lumia 800, running Windows Phone 7.5 |
Anyway .. so we left the store, brand new phones in hand. They were very shiny, they looked slick, they started up quickly and seemed like honestly damned good phones.
We both got our email setup quickly (both Hotmail and Exchange accounts) and while my better half was merrily catching up on Facebook, I was very impressed with the SharePoint integration and how it automatically configured the Office Hub when it realised my email account was on Office 365! Very slick...
What Battery Problems?
Now I had heard that there were battery problems, but a recent software fix seemed to sort this out. One of the very first things I did (with both phones) was plug them into Zune, get them synced up and install the latest software fix (so my phone is currently fully patched and running the latest version!).
My wife's phone was having an issue with battery life before the update (it dying after 12-15 hours) but this was well documented, and after we updated the phone everything seemed to be fine ..
in short .. life in the Hatch household's mobile world was good ..
so now lets wind on to last week ..
What do you mean you can't turn it on ??
The first sign of problems was actually on my wife's phone (the blue/cyan one for those of you paying attention!). She was coming to meet me in London after work and the usual agreement of "I'll send you a text message when I'm outside your office" .. now the work day came, went and started slipping when I finally got a phone call from a pay-phone ... my wife was frantic as her phone had turned itself off despite still having over 20% battery life remaining! and it would not turn on!
Eventually I managed to meet up (strangely difficult without constant-on communication .. how on earth did I manage before I had a mobile phone?) and I looked at the handset itself... I tried 6 times in a row to turn the phone on and kept trying periodically for another 10-15 minutes ... I tried it again one final time and it worked, buzzing into life like a defibrillator had just kicked it into life. I quickly logged in, went to the Settings and checked the "Battery Saver" and it said it had 23% battery with approximately 15 hours remaining .... how bizarre ...We didn't see the problem happen since (and we both use our phones quite a lot every single day) so I put it behind me and we kind of forgot about it ..
now lets wind on to today (or more accurately last night)
Congratulations! Its a Brick!
I was heading over to a friend's house .. now this particular friend has been having problems with his Android phone and was quite keen on looking at the latest flagship Windows Phone .. so I took mine out of my pocket and tried to unlock it ... nothing .. dead as a doornail.
I tried to turn it on .. nothing ... held down the power button for up to 30 seconds ... tried again .. still nothing. So then I thought .. "maybe the battery is dead??". So I borrowed his micro-USB charger and left it to charge for 20 minutes. I then came back .. still won't power on.
So now I am panicking .. I took my precious new phone home and left it on charge for 9 hours overnight but this morning? Nothing .. no life .. completely dead.
Now I have since attempted various tricks on the internet from various forums:
- Some people said it can't recharge if the battery hits 0% so heat the phone up and THEN try plugging it in .. this didn't work!
- Tried holding down the power button for 8 seconds (apparently this resets the power-cycle) .. that didn't work
- Tried unplugging and re-plugging the charging cable several times in a row while either holding down or randomly trying the power button ... didn't work
- Tried a "hardware reset" by holding down the Volume Down, Camera and Power buttons ... that didn't work either!
I will be taking this back to the Orange store that I got it from ASAP .. I expect them to replace it .. but I have already seen evidence of this strange issue on my wife's phone last week .. so will this keep happening?
I really hope this is a software bug (so they can release an update) .. or perhaps a really rare glitch in hardware that just HAPPENS to have struck both me and my other half at the same time.
If any of you have experienced the same problem please let me know in the comments... Otherwise I'll see what happens when I get mine replaced / repaired and let you all know!
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Seriously though, have you tried removing the battery completely (assuming you can cause it's not an apple) and waiting a while for all the magic pixies to vacate the silicon and then putting the battery back in?
ReplyDeleteI used to have a Nokia smart phone, you know the older ones before Windows, and it was a bit pants. One thing the hardware like to do was hang every other week or so and all that would bring it back to life was to remove the battery. :')
Good luck!
Alas poor yorrick .. the Nokia Lumia 800 is a completely sealed device.
ReplyDeleteYou can't get the battery out (on my old HTC that was my first port of call).
Having spoken to Orange they have kindly agreed to replace the handset and a new shiny one will be shipped out to me tomorrow.
My Lumia 800 just "bricked" itself too. A friend was calling, I clicked "answer" and the phone went all black. Tried all those tricks in your post, but none of them worked first, but after one hour it returned back to life when I connected it to charger.
ReplyDeleteSo the phone just froze completely until it ran out of battery, then it started to work again. I'll throw my phone into freezer when it crashes next time. :)
Jarkko,
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about that.. I have heard rumours that the battery is the main culprit .. that if it drops TOO low then it doesn't have enough charge to initialise the "recharge" component (design flaw eh?).
The good news is that my replacement handset has (so far) been solid as a rock. No sign of any problems at all!
Lumia 800 has a sealed non removable battery, so its a brick from the start.When the battery eventually dies. you just throw the phone away.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but such an approach hasn't stopped the iPod / iPhone / iPad sensation from being successful
I am currently on my second Nokia Lumia 800, and only 4 months into my contract.
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem. It started when I was on holiday and it 'soft reset' itself, but I managed to keep all my messages, just had to re-enter my Live Account details.
After this, the little blighter would not let me download any apps etc it just kept saying error 80004003. I did a software update, and it didn't fix the problem. I had the brilliant idea of doing a soft reset. Now I have a brick.
In all honesty, I love the phone. I do not want to change, but I have told Orange (who are sending me yet another phone tomorrow)if I get another problem, I will be asking to change my phone on the contract with no penalties.
Are the majority of problems on the Orange network??