Inside story: The 3.5 months underwater Nokia Lumia 800
Nokia devices have a long hard-as-nails history of being bashed, crashed and smashed, yet still surviving against all the odds.
Just do a Web for search “Indestructible Nokia” and you’ll see what we mean. Nevertheless, this is the first time we’ve heard of a Nokia Lumia surviving at the bottom of a lake. And not just for a few minutes, but for three and a half long months.
First shared on the Nokia Sweden Facebook page a week or so ago, this story has been around the Web and back again. Now, we’ve caught up with the man who performed the impossible, and salvaged this sunken Lumia treasure, to get the inside story. Put your hands together for fantastic fixer, Roger Nilsson.
Sweden is blessed with hundreds of beautiful lakes. Which one of these swallowed the Nokia Lumia 800 and how did it happen?
In May, a work friend of mine was sunbathing with her husband by Lake Ivösjön, which is the largest and deepest lake of Skåne in Sweden. Her Lumia 800 was laying on a towel and her husband didn’t see it when he picked it up, so the poor Nokia fell down the cliff and into the water. They tried to find it but no luck.
So, how was it found and how did it look when you saw it?
At the end of August another friend went snorkelling and Anna asked him to look for her phone at the same time. Amazingly, he found it 2 meters down. Anna brought the phone to me the next day and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. It was completely covered in algae, shells and brown stuff. I told Anna that this phone is dead but I’d have a go at it.
Was it tough to fix?
I started to clean the whole phone (it took almost 6 hours) and then I put it on a radiator to dry for about four days. I never opened it! On the fifth day I put the charger in it thinking either it will blackout my house or the charger would brake, but damn I was surprised when I saw Nokia on the screen and then the Windows Phone logo.
What was your reaction when it started to work again and how did seeing it spark into life make you feel about Nokia phones?
I called all my friends including Anna and she said, “Yeah, right. It’s not April 1st now!” But it was true. Everything works perfect, camera is good, and battery is perfect. The only little issue is that sometimes it wants to lower the volume by it self. I told all my friends that my next phone will be a Nokia and if I can afford it, one with that nice JBL PlayUp speaker that can charge the phone wireless. That would be a dream come true for me.
Needless to say, we love a happy ending here at Nokia Conversations, especially when it means we can add underwater survival to the plethora of indestructible Nokia stories we so regularly hear. That said, we definitely wouldn’t advise taking your phone for a dip.
If you’re wondering what it is that makes Nokia devices so hardy you might want to check out this story.