(no subject)

[which_chick]

While I was out taking pictures of high spring water (Mom, it's on the flickr. Go look there.) yesterday, I dropped my cellphone near, but not in, Oregon Run. It spent the night (absolutely shitty weather, sleet, snow, and rain, high winds, temperatures in the thirties) outside until I found it again at four-thirty or so this afternoon.



I know I already talked about how great my cell was... last fall, when it went swimming. However, I'm talking about it again. Not only can it go swimming (I dropped it in a massive sucking vortex of a storm drain last fall, dried it out, and it was fine), it can go camping by itself in the cold, dark, sleet of an April Nor'easter. It did not suffer hypothermia. It didn't seem to mind getting wet. It still works -- the battery needed to be charged, but that was all.

The Motorola i710: Amphibious All-Weather Assault Phone! It has, of course, been discontinued. It is not small enough or sleek enough to appeal to the people who buy cell phones. It doesn't have a camera or play mp3s or anything cool like that. It's big. It's clunky. It's black. But... I've dropped it a whole lot, sometimes off of ladders, without incident. As I discovered last fall, it can swim! And as I found out this afternoon, IT CAN GO CAMPING ON ITS OWN WITHOUT A TENT! OVERNIGHT! IN REALLY CRAPPY WEATHER! (Watch this space -- probably on its next outing, the i710 will bring our troops home from Iraq and impose Democracy 1.2.16 (beta) on the Iraqis.)

I'm not sure why all these cellphone skills weren't mentioned in the handbook that came with the phone. You'd think people besides me would like these features in a cell phone.

Comments

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

Man, I'd like those featuers on a cell phone. I haven't dropped mine in a vortex or anything, but I have gone through at least... 6 phones that stop working for random reasons (mostly in less than 3 months since I got the previous one, and therefore under warranty. But still.)

[moeckie.livejournal.com]

The sweet man left his on a shelf/foot hold thing in the big truck and when he stopped it plopped into the dog's water dish. The cheap motorolas cannot swim. They drown, even when only immersed for a matter of moments.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Maybe I have an expensive Motorola? But it was kind of klunky and uncool when I got it. It's not got any swell features at all save for the apparent indestructibility.