TRUE STORY. Late one night I'm in my condo, which is on the 6th floor of my building. I wanted to take a picture of a cool moon shot out my window, but with the glass it blurred the shot and a screen, of course, would obscure it. So I opened one window and moved the screen up so I could get a great shot. However, the window kept sliding down. So I moved something over to prop it up, and a cord attached to it knocked my phone right out the window.
I watched in shock as the phone, a Samsung Galaxy S9 with a protective case - but not exactly a military-grade one - went hurtling end-over-end towards the ground. It fell six stories and crashed onto the concrete sidewalk, whereupon the phone itself shot out of the case like a cannon into the street. After staring at what had just happened for a millisecond or so, I tore out of my place, into the elevator, and down to the street to retrieve the pieces. The protective case, which I bought with the phone at the Sprint store, was on the sidewalk. The phone was in the street. Fortunately, it was late and no one was driving right there.
I snapped the phone back into the case. The screen was just SHATTERED and portions of the screen had flickering, ominous looking green flashes. It looked like a Halloween decoration. Of course I couldn't access anything on the screen or enter my PIN and I figured everything inside had been scrambled more than an egg at Denny's. There was no way the circuitry handled that crash. That meant texts, pictures, apps, everything on that phone was gone.
Or so I thought.
I plugged the phone into a charger just for the heck of it and, through the shattered screen glass, I saw the "charging" light come on. Then an e-mail notification sounded. I raised an eyebrow, kept charging it, and went to bed. In the morning, I heard a text notification or two. So... at least parts of the phone were still working. Which was amazing in itself.
I brought the phone to the Sprint store where I bought it, they verified my insurance would cover what was likely going to be a new phone, albeit I would lose all my texts and anything else I hadn't backed up - although most of the stuff was in the "cloud." But texts are a key way I communicate with people, and those always seem to get lost in situations like this. But at that point, I just wanted to get a working phone back in my hands, since it's incredibly important for work as well as in life in general.
So after getting off work at the radio station, I went to the other Sprint store that had technicians available. They saw the screen and the flicker and figured the phone was a goner - as did I, despite some evidence parts of it were still working. They told me they had a replacement screen for that model and asked me to come back in an hour and a half.
After I went back to the store, they were as amazed as I was... after carefully removing the old, shattered-beyond-belief screen, the replacement screen worked beautifully, looked great, and functioned to the fullest extent. The only damage? The front camera, which bore part of the brunt of the six-story fall, worked but had trouble focusing. They said those were on backorder but I could come back in a week or two and they'll pop the phone open and replace that camera free, and it only take a few minutes. The back, main camera worked as wonderfully as it always has.
So I paid my $30 for the screen replacement and left with my Samsung Galaxy S9, which had weathered that crazy six-story fall and smash onto concrete, working just fine. Everything I needed was there. I'm still amazed!
Shout-out to Samsung for how well the phone, and its case, endured what must have been such a shock and collision. Also, to the tech guys at Asurion inside the Sprint store, Chris and Jason. They made the experience phenomenal.
This isn't an ad, just something that happened to me Thursday. I still look at this phone with disbelief. I just had to share!