Death of my Xperia
Once in a while misfortune befalls individuals. And I happen to be that individual. Tuesday, 3rd of november, I played 2048 on my phone and lost before even reaching the 2048 tile. Immediately, I lost all interest in playing and decided to leave it till after dinner. Little did I know that was the last time I would ever get to play 2048 on my Sony.
Somehow, in some way, my phone slipped right out of my hand while walking to dinner. I mean, after all these time of holding my phone, I have never dropped my phone, and even if I did knock my phone off tables or whatsoever, the phone survived each time. Yeah obviously there will be slight aesthetics damage, but the phone is 99% perfect every single time. Sony designed this phone extremely well. When the phone falls, the point of contact will always be with the edge of the phone, so no matter which part of the phone, front or back or sides, hit the floor, the screen will always stay protected and thus protecting the phone.
Glimmer of Hope Remains
However, this time, the top right of the phone cracked and a fine hairline width crack ran diagonally down across the screen from the impact point. Till now, I still don’t understand how it happened. It is as though something exerted a force on top of the F=MA of the phone itself. I picked up the phone, dusted off the dust and depressed the power button. Great! The screen responds, all is well. Of course, except for the cracked screen.
I went on my way, pretty much forgetting about the whole incident, until I finished my dinner and took out my phone for another round of 2048. Strange. The phone is not responding to the right side of the screen. Never mind, I shall restart my device and try again. In my long history of meddling with electronic devices, a restart/reboot works wonders and 50% of the time solves the root problem one might have.
Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken
Shocking fact #2. The whole touchscreen died after the reboot. I sat at the dinner table mind blanked staring at my now dead phone for five minutes. Then started laughing. The people beside me thought I went crazy. And so for the next three hours, I tried all methods to get the screen to work, but to no avail. The earliest I could get a replacement phone was three days after, so for three days I became uncontactable. Actually, not totally uncontactable, just that I could not be reached by phone or message, but social networking sites still work. I could choose to remain hidden from the world and strangely that felt relieving. For three days, I went on a research spree trying to 1) somehow fix my phone and retrieve my data at the very least, 2) find a suitable replacement phone, something decent but won’t break the bank.
Asus?
By wednesday, I had largely decided to go with the Asus Zenfone 2. It was either the Asus phone or cough up another $60 for a brand new early 2014 Sony Z2. I trust Sony a lot and would choose Sony for their excellent build quality and UI, but $60 is not exactly peanuts to me. The two phones were comparable, both worthy of the flagship status. On one hand the Sony was a proven manufacturer of legendary Japanese craftsmen origin, while on the other hand, the Asus has 4GB of ram and double the internal storage of the Z2, not to mention the more powerful intel soc inside.
It boiled down mainly to the cost. In the end, I did not feel that the extra money was worth it and decided the Asus was the one. Friday couldn’t get here any earlier, could it?
Friday finally arrived. The time has come for me to exchange my hard earned money for a brick of magical electronic chips that bring us all so much joy and entertainment(music addict). The heavens tend to rain on people’s parades and unbelievable as it was, the moment I was free to go, the heavens opened up and rain literally felt on the parade square. Well, not just the parade square, but everywhere. The worse part of this story was not the rain, I don’t mind rain. It was the fact that now close to a hundred people now cramp into the tiny taxi stand, competing to get a cab out of the inferno place. Cabs came and go, and my party could not get a cab. And so we waited, and waited. (We indicating me , my friends, and my Asus phone in the shop). Little by little, the crowd at the taxi stand thinned and we finally boarded a cab about thirty minutes later.
Fast forward one hour, and I arrive at the shop. Asked for the Zenfone and got to inspect the phone. Shop owner couldn’t get the phone to turn on, so he told me to wait twenty minutes for the phone to charge. And so I waited. Three customers came in the meantime and left and still I waited. The guy probably took pity on the poor drenched customer and decided to give me another set. Gotta say I am very satisfied with this phone, except a little disappointed with the rather poor battery life. My first smartphone was from lg and the phone lasted three days plus on a single charge. Then I upgraded to a Sony and got a shock when the battery only lasted barely a day.
Buyer’s Remorse?
Now, I find myself shocked again when the Asus cannot last even half a day. Sure, the battery predicts a standby time of over day, but for that you cannot even wake your device. Apparently there is a memory leak issue with android lollipop and in addition to the problematic google play services which caused this poor battery performance. Hopefully Asus has decent customer support to at least provide 5.1.1 and if theres marshmallow, all the better.
EDIT: THE PHONE BARELY LASTED A YEAR AND WAS THOROUGHLY A NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE 🙁
WEEK 2
Fell really ill on Wednesday. Woke up feeling as though my lungs went on holiday and I aged 50 years overnight. Throughout the day, it only got worse. The worst part was that in 3 days was the ORD parade and I didn’t want to miss out on that. So I still went for rehearsals the following day, thinking it couldn’t be that bad. Perhaps it wouldn’t, had the sun not been that unforgiving. The first hour under the scorching sun gave me a splitting headache that made me want to close my eyes and just faint. Then came the clouds. And the rain. We welcome the rain, and unlike most people who would sprint for the nearest shelter when it starts drizzling, the rain is a blessing for us. Well, that is until it starts pouring. The cycle of rain and shine worsened the suspected flu, hence I skipped out on the long distance run that friday. What a pity though, I really enjoy long distance runs.
I must have looked really ghastly, for four people to question my ability to participate in the parade. To quote someone, I “look pale and weak”. Yeah I think so too. With less than 12 hours till the parade, I started to wonder if I could still join in the parade. It is the final highlight of the year, something I had looked forward to in my very first year of service. This was the only chance I had to don on the white uniform, ignoring the fact that the collar was made to strangle the wearer. So my friend offered me some kind of panadol, which miraculously fixed the problem just in time. To be honest, it wasn’t a full recovery, more like a 75% fix. When the effects of the medicine wore off, I was back to square one, so I slept off the whole day.
Week 3
Went bowling. Or rather, I tried to bowl. Damaged my nails in the process and now I know you are not meant to bowl with unclipped nails. Ouch.
Week 4
I once watched a ninja movie and walked away impressed by the physical strength and amazing agility of the said ninja. But not everyone can be a ninja. I learnt that the hard way during a game of dog and bone. My side was losing really badly and I planned on playing the “chill” way and not play it the violent and aggressive way the others were adopting. Then for some strange reason, I suddenly decided to chase after the opponent who picked up the bone. I was shy of within reach, I just needed to run faster. So, by instinct, I did a ninja flying jump to tap his shoulder. The second point of impact send my leg bending backwards and a sharp pain registered immediately. Luckily, I managed to stand on the uninjured leg and hop to safety while the medic rushed over. At the end of the day, the report stated ankle sprain and I was given a crutch to support in travelling. I guess this is considered my first sprain and hopefully my last. The loss of walking ability is really unpleasant and annoying.