the nokias seem to be the toughest though, someone i know had a 3310 which survived repeated drops on concrete, the only thing which finally broke the screen was falling off the top of a car and the phone dismantled itself. New screen £6 on Ebay, AFAIK its still going. These things will probably be used by the roaches after WWIII ;-)

BTW it seems these phones also were thick thin phones do tend to be flimsy.

Since then, though, I understand how cheaply constructed it is and baby it so it doesn’t break on me.

these testing chambers must be for the freebie phones, because those do tend to be indestructible.

I noticed a small defect in the phone and I called Vodafone to report it. It wasn’t major, just a tiny annoyance which I didn’t really want fixed.. I just wanted to place some feedback. The voicemail icon was just aboutr always on, it wasn’t updating properly. Also, if I tried to play an entire movie in full-screen mode it would crash and reset the phone. So, I had to keep track of my voicemail manually, and wait 500 or 1000 milliseconds to go to full screen after starting a video (no, pause doesn’t help).

These faults would catch me every time and make me swear, but maybe not worth getting the phone repaired over. Regardless, the charming individual on the other end of the phone insisted that I send it back for warranty repair. I said “OK, sure”. He told me to take it to a Vodafone store. I pointed out that there were no Vodafone stores within 3 hours of here (so total six hours of driving to get my phone fixed…. This could quickly approach the cost of a new phone). Disbelieving, he had to look it up. “OHHHH” he says, and sends me a courier bag to ship away the phone.

Amazingly, the address on the bag doesn’t say who I’m actually sending the phone to.

So, I wind up with a loan phone. It has no bluetooth, doesn’t take memory cards, doesn’t hnave a colour screen, and is inferior in every way to my real phone. I mean this thing must cost a hundred bucks or so, a real low budget phone.

A couple of months later, my phone comes back to me. I’m overjoyed, it’s been so long!
It won’t turn on.
If it switches on, it takes half an hour to start and drains the battery in ninety minutes. Completely useless, it’s bricked.

I send it back, they decide the phone can’t be started and replace it. Eventually they get around to sending me a faulty replacement phone.

Anyway a few iterations of this, a year goes by and I have a cellphone which can make videos but can’t take photos. This is what the repair shop sent me.
The repair shop is called MOBILE FONE REPAIRS and obviously is useless ;-)… My advice to anyone buying cellphones in New Zealand is IMPORT THEM. It’s cheaper. Don’t worry about the warranty, it’s a waste of money because they will always send you back a broken phone under warranty. Every single time.

If you send your phone back under warranty, be prepared to lose it. Don’t make my mistkae, don’t believe in a mobile phone warranty, it’s a myth.