Rescuing my iPhone

So recently I've been really down with luck with my iPhone. Just weeks ago during my examination week in May, my iPhone's battery decided to die on me. It completely didn't want to charge at all and it just went so flat that I couldn't on it. Seek some help from my friend, Kelvin Li (whom is a hard core Apple 'fan'). He went to buy a battery @ Sim Lim Square and managed to fix the phone for me! Spent $46 for the battery with workmanship free. (that's because his my friend)

It has been working perfectly fine till just on Monday night........

I freaking dropped my phone again. Yes, it committed suicide from 1 metre high and flat on the floor.

The fortunate thing is, the screen didn't crack (thank you mercury cover). But the sad thing was. Once again, I can't on it anymore. It's really frustrating and I felt so upset that it was spoilt again. This is my longest living phone. (None of my phones actually survive pass 1 year in the past) But this phone? It's going to celebrate its 2nd birthday with me. (which is actually an achievement for me.)

Luckily, the previous time when my phone died, my ex-colleague actually recommended some repair shops. And you know what. A big thank you because it revived my phone!

Well... I chose the one which was @ Bras Basah (thinking it was nearer but it was long because I got last without my GPS) It's actually not very hard to find the place but... okay, just blame it I don't have the GPS with me.

So I went over to Bras Basah this shop called iPhonefix (you can click the name to go to their website) to have my phone fix. Within 15 minutes he was able to 'diagnose' my phone and gave me a couple of solutions and some tips to charging iPhone and external chargers.

He mentioned that actually all external chargers will cause your phone to spoil faster because of the different voltage and the blah blah blah. (don't really understand what are the parts and etc so in short, it's just not good for the long run) He did recommend that if you're a constant user of external charger then you should get the 2nd year warranty for your phone cause that's when all the 'problems' will arise. iPhone is indeed a pretty selfish phone because till now, he says there's no external charger that's 'suitable' for iPhone. (he did say we can continue to use but just not recommended for frequent using)

I did asked quite abit and he was pretty patient in answering my queries. So it was $50 for everything and it was good to go. But guess what, they only accept cash and the nearest ATM was located @ MRT which was 5-10 minutes walk away from the shop. I had no choice but to brisk walk back to the MRT and back to the shop. (but he was nice to charge the battery for me cause it was only 9% upon changing it.)

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Overall, I guess it was pretty reasonable because I didn't had to pay for 'consultation' fees. $50 for some questions and immediate repair sounds good to me. I didn't had to wait quite it was rather empty. Not too bad it's a small problem. There was this fellow beside me that unfortunately got soaked with some water and it was not savable so the 'doctor' pronounced it dead. No charges though. So if you have any problems like what I've experience (see what happened below) then perhaps you can make a trip there. What I did was to actually SMS them first with the situation and got them to quote a price for me. So they will reply with a rough gauge. (the rough gauge they gave me was $50 and turn out to be $50 cause there wasn't any complication.)

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Case No. 1

The first time what happened to my iPhone was suddenly one day I was charging, then I realize that the AC sign was showing even though the battery was 35%. So what happens is that when the AC sign shows, the battery actually doesn't charge. Initially I thought it was the charger that was spoilt so I tried with like at least 3-4 different chargers from different charging points and cables. All didn't work. Panicky me quickly seek for help from friends and searched online. Tried ALOT of ways like force shut, reset and alot of rubbish but it still, didn't work. (even to the extend of putting my phone under the aircon to cool it so it'd charge) The last straw was actually to restore it. Of course, all this didn't work and soon my phone went completely flat. :( (the feeling sucks, really)

Kelvin helped me to 'diagnose' the problem and went to hunt for a suitable battery. He managed to fix it and it was actually just the battery died. That's all. (great thanks to Kelvin!)

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Case No. 2

Just a couple of weeks after my phone was 'saved' it was working fine till one night... I was so engrossed on the line and my phone just slipped and committed suicide from my 1 metre tall table and poooooof! Cannot on no matter how I charge it.

I tried to on it, can't. So I tried to charge it. Apparently when I charge, the apple logo appears for awhile then it changed to my home screen. (the AC sign was showing) I unlocked my phone but it showed me to 'connect' to itunes page. So when I remove the plug and switch to my laptop, the phone shut down again. When I opened up my itunes and plug in the iPhone. The apple sign appeared and then disappear. Appear and disappear. And the cycle goes on, and on.

Desperately I had no choice but to drop SMS to the iPhonefix and await for a reply. The next morning I got a reply with a quote so I thought just go for it and see how things go. (since consultation is free I can choose to repair or not)

After work I took a good 30 minutes before I found the place and then it was fixed within 15 minutes. It was like almost immediate when he open up my phone he could see what's wrong with it and immediately changed the battery.

Guess what? My battery connector 'broke'. LOL. I have no idea how I manage to do that but yeah, the connecting part or whatever is that was 'broken' and that's why the entire battery has to be changed. Whatever it was, spent $50 and got back my phone!

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Do note this is only based on my own opinions. I do not guarantee a 100% repair or they're damn awesome. Just purely sharing my incidents so that people with similar cases won't have to go through the pain of what I did (especially restoring my phone was the most painful when I didn't had the chance to finish backing up my stuff).

I'm just glad my phone is working now.