Cellphone dead.

One would wish that like software, hardware would simply live forever. Alas.

My cellphone apparently dropped out of my pocket one time too often. The little engine inside that provides the vibration function had already been loose since the very first time I dropped it (when I had it for about a month or so) and I never used it since that time; but by now, it's come even more loose, and something has gone very bad. About half of the time it says "contact service" when I power it up, and when it does get switched on properly, it usually doesn't find a network. And even then still—on the off chance that I can power it on and it properly connects to the network, it either switches itself off for no particular reason after a while, or just loses it's network connection. Chances of that happening are lower if I don't move the thing, but then a cellphone that can't be used isn't very helpful.

This morning, I tried getting a connection for about 10 minutes before I finally gave up and used my parent's land line.

I went to a local hardware store (as in, metal and the likes rather than computer hardware) and bought myself a T6 screwdriver, so that I could open up the thing, and I removed the vibration engine.

That didn't work. On the contrary; without that engine, I have not been able to get any network connection anymore. Considering how the engine is positioned suspiciously close to the phone's antenna, I suspect that Nokia's engineers introduced a clever hack to extend the antenna size without having to add too much metal. Either that, or the engine broke off a few important bits inside the phone.

So, now I'm down to having to go buy a new cellphone. Luckily, it appears as if the 6310i is still being manufacturered, so perhaps I'll be able to still get myself one outstanding cellphone without bullshit functionality (who needs camera's and color screens on cellphones, of all things, anyway?). Only need to get the budget for a new phone first. Oh well.