2011/04/11

Safety Interlock

The story start from 3 years ago, I got myself a Nokia 6500s, a decent phone, S60, comes with an dictionary application, chinese calendar, nice lens (for the time and the price). On top of that, it's stainless steel body cover with class. (which is the same reason I got an eye on Samsung Wave, but they don't have it on android phones.)

Somehow, one day it dropped from the 4th floor of Suntec Convention Center, which my heart had broken since. No other damages noticed so far, other than the micro SD card had not been functioning. Everytime I tried to access it, it either suddenly disappear from the GUI, nor caused a hang of the phone.

I coped with it for some time, before switching into the current Samsung Galaxy Spica as I renewed my contract. The Nokia 6500s since then become my secondary phone, especially while I am in Malaysia.

Last Sunday, I decided to send it for a fix, as I thought the fall  must had damaged the Micro SD card slot. The shops returned it back to me on the next day, charging me SGD30 for the work done, telling me that it worked.

I went home, tried it with my own Micro SD, nothing happened. I started to ponder as it is impossible that the shop thought that it worked. Desparately, I did a search. It turns out that there are quite some users had had the same issue as well.

Here comes the thing: Taking out the back cover and observe, you can find there are 4 spots of connecting points on the back of the sliding phone (Refer to Caption 1.). While the same applies to the stainless steel cover, having four protrusions each correspond to one of the connecting points mentioned earlier (three are by metal punching, and the last one close to the camera lens cover are of metal bending (Refer to Caption 2.). The four connection points must be connected, to have the Micro SD reader work, I believe they have it to prevent users having the micro SD card without installing the cover(or perhaps "properly installed the cover"), as the micro SD card may drop out.(Although I have alot of doubts for this purpose)

Caption 1. Connecting Points on the Back of the Phone (See Red Circles)

Caption 2. Protrusion on the Stainless Steel Cover (See Red Circles)
Nail Clipper Gripping Direction (See Red Arrows)

The one close to the camera lens was slightly flattened, I tested it by pushing down the cover tight, and the reader works again. Once I had my hands off, the cover springs back and hence, again disconnected. At the end of the day, a nail clipper saves the day. (See Caption 2.)

Conclusion
1) The phone GUI should have pop out warnings, such as "The back cover was not detected, please carefully install it to have access to the memory card", instead just gone off, auto switching to the phone memory itself.
2) Perhaps Nokia had mentioned it in the manual, I missed it.
3) My engineering failed, Nokia failed, Google wins.
4) As I always said, google is my best, if only I had asked for his help earlier, I could have save my coins.