Today my new iPhone arrived! It is a 13 mini, the same model as my old one. Why didn’t I get an upgrade or a nicer phone, you ask? Because I love mini phones and I feel that the larger ones are too big, and more expensive.
This is what my old phone currently looks like.
You may be shocked by how damaged it is. Let me tell you the story of how, after only a year and a half, I need a new phone.
Once upon a time, when a younger Enya was watching Youtube, an ad for a phone case brand, Mous, came up. It depicted testing their phone case very extensively using extreme measures, such as dropping a phone (with their case) from cliffs and helicopters. I was absolutely amazed. I vowed to get their phone case when the time came for me to get my first iPhone.
Finally the day came. It was March 18th. After receiving my acceptance letter to Exeter, I had earned myself my phone of choice. The newest iPhone mini model, the 13. I happily went to buy myself a Mous phone case and Mous screen protector.
I had never been very careful with my phone after that, often throwing it around, and accidentally dropping it with full confidence that it would never break (It never did! until…)
Fast forward to October 15th. A friend was sick with COVID-19, so a few of my friends and I decided to go visit and entertain him for a bit by throwing stress balls into his 2nd floor window. I had the grand idea to throw my phone instead of a stress ball. Believe it or not, it actually worked first try without hitting the brick wall, and I got a hilarious video out of it. It sailed right through his open window onto his bedside table, face up. My phone was completely fine. With newfound confidence, I continued to be reckless with my phone.
The day my phone shattered was October 16th. It was the day of the first robotics meeting. As a two boys and I were leaving, I asked if either would give me 10 bucks if I dropped my phone down the science building stairwell. We were up four floors. Under my (false) sense of confidence, I thought this would be free money.
As you can probably guess, my phone shattered. What was really surprising though was the fact that the front screen and cameras and all of my phone’s functions were perfectly fine, it was only the back glass that was really broken. At least I got my $10 though. We swore to never tell anybody about the event that had just transpired.
Later that year, I was running back to campus from a restaurant with two friends because check-in was very soon, and my phone fell out of my pocket onto the pavement. After I got home, I realized that there was a very small black circle of dead pixels on my screen, likely sustained from the fall. Again, for some reason, my screen protector was not cracked in any way shape or form, except for a miniscule dent where the black dot was. My phone, again, worked just as well as before.
Over time, I realized the once miniscule black dot had grown to half the diameter of a nickel, and that the right side of my phone case no longer fit over my warping screen. Again, my phone experienced no other computational issues, and the damage was purely physical. (or so I thought)
Fast forward to mid-June, and I was in China. I left my phone on the Chinese equivalent of our Uber, and our driver was kind enough to mail my phone back to my grandma’s house. Nobody touched it or turned it on for 9 days. After I was finally reunited with my phone, I started to notice some issues arising. The battery would no longer hold well, and would spike from 100% to 30% to 60% to 10%. It still worked fine while charging.
After I arrived back home, I immediately backed up my phone, because I no longer trusted my phone’s ability to not randomly die forever and lose all my data. This instinct was correct, as two weeks later, exactly the date my summer camp at brown university ended, it refused to stay on for longer than 2 minutes at a time, even while charging.
Now, my phone is in it’s final days. I will soon take it away to be recycled. It’s full potential has been tragically cut short by my stupidity and false confidence in a phone case company. The life it lived, albeit short, has been meaningful and fulfilling, with over 8000 photos and videos taken with it’s cameras. Over the course of a year and a half it has saved over 60GB of my precious memories. It’s time to say goodbye.
TL;DR: take care of your phones.
