Before your device is serviced: Useful hints

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Damaged battery, broken screen, smartphone won’t turn on or touch doesn’t work – there’s nothing worse when our favorite device suddenly stops working. What should you pay attention to before returning it for repair?

The topic of accidental damage to a smartphone has been relevant for many years. It can be safely said that modern phones are much more delicate than their classic counterparts from several years ago. When I bought one of the flagship phones nearly two years ago, my joy did not last long. Yes, before the first use, I put a protective case on my smartfone and protective hardened glass for a display. It did not help at all.

What happened? I went from Lublin to one of the hospitals in Warsaw for a consultation. I was pensive for my first visit to an unknown place. Already in the hospital parking lot, I took out my phone to check the exact address and name of the clinic, then I picked up the change in the parking lot and got out of the car. I heard the phone hit the sidewalk. I reacted like almost every person in this situation. My eyes widened in surprise and a juicy words flew into the air.

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Damage to the glass in the rear camera

It turned out that I forgot to put the phone in my pocket and it was still on my pants. As I got out, it slipped to the ground. It fell from a height of less than half a meter, straight onto the pavement. The case did not properly protect the lenses sticking out of the housing. A cobweb appeared on it, which of course meant that the photos were not even sharp anymore. When I took the smartphone out of the box for the first time, I knew immediately that the protruding lenses would be a problem for me. I was not wrong.

A few days later I ordered spare parts and figured I would replace the rear camera protective glass myself. It turned out that the lens cover is an integral part of the phone casing and half of the smartphone should be disassembled. Of course, what was shown in the guides on YouTube as easy to disassemble, in fact, did not even want to flinch. I gave up because I only wasted time and money and could have damaged my new phone even more. At the very end, it turned out that the local expert replaced this part with me so that after pasting it turned out that he did not clean the element from the inside and the cobwebs are gone, but there is dirt, giving exactly the same effect as before.

What is the moral of the story? Damage to portable devices does and will happen all the time. Nobody plans to spoil their – usually expensive equipment, unless they are looking for an excuse to finally change it to a new one. My friend damaged the screen on the latest Apple MacBook pro because she decided to create a blog post while sunbathing on the beach. The sand made a beautiful pattern where it choked against the screen just after closing the flap. The MacBook had to go to a specialized service to replace the entire screen. In turn, my smartwatch for nearly 400 euro got broke after rubbing the wall in the basement when i was taking my bike out. I enjoyed it for 2 weeks.

When the device is not working as it should

Much worse are the cases when the smartphone begins to suffer from other problems – e.g. the battery does not hold up or swells, it has been flooded, the home button is not active, it does not want to charge or the software is unstable, it freezes frequently or the phone overheats. Such a phone does not have to end up in the trash. It is important to choose the right specialist for repair. Most people try to diagnose the cause and look for a solution on the internet. For years, there have been many pranksters here who make a joke about the problem of other people. Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of inaccurate advice that can aggravate the problem or almost destroy your hardware. That is why it is often simply worth returning the device to a specialized service. But we must be careful here too. The website must be checked and recommended by other users. Once I gave the famous Sony Ericsson K900i to such a self-proclaimed local specialist (I did not know then that Mr. Expert has no idea what he is doing). The task was simple – replacing the screen. It took him two weeks and he replaced the screen so that the keyboard fell off the phone, the loudspeaker stopped working, and he took the money “for parts” for it.

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Prepare the device for service

– First, check where you are returning your device. The web is full of adverts from people claiming to be experts in their field. Your device may be more damaged, or it may take weeks to repair it. This can be very frustrating. The more expensive the device, the more you should pay attention to this point. It is a pity that your new Apple MacBook Air did not survive, for example, replacing the touchpad.

– If possible, make a complete backup of the contents of your device. In some cases, it may turn out that the service technician will have to restore the device to its factory settings, which will clear all data in its memory. It’s also a good practice to log out of social networks and other accounts on your phone. Many people do not pay attention to their personal data, but you should always protect them from access by third parties.

– Describe exactly what the problem is with the device. This will allow faster diagnosis and repair. It may also turn out to be crucial in order not to damage additional components. By informing the service technician that, for example, the phone previously fell to the ground, and now the button in it does not work, despite the lack of visible damage, it can clearly direct him to the source of the problem.

– Disable any additional security. If it is required by a problem (e.g. a problem with the system, functionalities), the service technician must be able to test the device. If you send your hardware back without releasing security, you may need to restore it to its default settings, which will wipe your data back to zero.

– Make sure there is no sensitive data on the device. This is especially true for memes, photos, conversation records, recorded videos, and other things that you may have created and even forgotten in the past. Recently, it was loud about the case when one of the service technicians in the United States published nude photos of the owner of the phone, which he found on it during the repair.

– Take off the protective case, take out the memory card, sim card, and additional accessories that you bought for the device outside the set. Thanks to this, you will avoid a situation where they can be lost.

– Do not be afraid to use the services of websites located in another city. Sometimes it is worth sending your equipment to such a service to be sure that it will be treated in the right way.

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Jakub Markiewicz
Jakub Markiewiczhttps://jotem.in
Hi, I am the author of the Jotem.in blog and series of thematic portals since 2013. I have nearly 15 years of experience in working in the media, marketing, public relations and IT. If you are interested in cooperation, you would like me to write about something or test a product - let me know.
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