The new battery for my phone arrived Tuesday, and John installed it that night. It was not easy. I mean, it’s easy when you think about the steps involved (pry off the back of the phone, unscrew the harness, pull out the battery, put the new one in, screw in the harness, pop the back of the phone back on), but prying off the back and pulling out the battery were HARD TO DO. This phone isn’t meant to come apart, and it really doesn’t want to. Over the course of about half an hour, we got the back off, and then it took another 10 minutes or so (maybe longer) to get the battery out, worrying the whole time that we were damaging the phone.
Eventually, John put it back together with the new battery, and I plugged it in to charge overnight. Positive sign: the indicator showed that it was charging.
I turned it on Wednesday morning, and immediately got a couple of texts from the night before (good sign) and sent a reply, but when John tried to call my phone, he got sent straight to voicemail. I was standing right there. The phone didn’t ring. I couldn’t make outgoing calls. Then I couldn’t send or receive texts, even though I had JUST done both. I couldn’t get online. My phone showed that it had service, several bars, but that appeared to be a lie. Later in the morning, I turned my phone off and back on. Again, I had a very short burst of connectivity, but that was it.
I switched to my work phone for the day, figuring we would take my phone apart again later and see what we did. Even if it couldn’t hold a charge for very long, it still worked.
John: I’m sorry I made it worse.
Me: No, you didn’t…oh, wait. You did.
Wednesday afternoon, John googled the problem and found that my phone has one antenna for 3G and one for LTE inside the back, and sometimes they can get knocked out of place when you muck around in there. He switched my phone setting to 3G only and IT WORKED. It was slow as hell, but it worked.
This morning, he took it apart again to try to fix the LTE antenna and IT WORKED AGAIN. I don’t always have LTE service, and it’s possible that the constant search for LTE is what is killing my battery, but MY PHONE WORKS.
I’ll keep an eye on the battery during normal use and see how it goes. I may still be in the market for a new phone soon, but it would be REALLY REALLY REALLY NICE if this one lives a while longer.