Friday, April 15, 2016

ATT and the Samsung S6

I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 smart phone. It's no longer smart. Richard says it has a brain injury. That is not what I told the tech guy when I finally got someone on the phone.

All photos from Google Images
But how does one describe the problem to a person who cannot see the problem? I don't mean he was blind or that he couldn't envision what I needed him to see. No, the problem is that I want to point, wave, poke (as necessary in this particular case) and just generally talk with my hands. 

That's my problem, you see. I need my hands to talk. To explain I have to get very animated, sort of like a cartoon character on fire--jumping around, flaying my arms around, poking the problem (doctor-like) until the listener sees the issue. 

Phones don't really allow for that. Nor do they allow me to read expressions. I need to know that my listener/tech/help is listening to me. What if the guy is shopping on Amazon? How do I know? He could be picking onions out of his burger for all know, mimicking to the guy beside him that onions give him gas and laughing it up. 


But back to the phone. "It does not respond to my touch." That's what I eventually had to say to the stranger on the other end of the line. Not my finest line, of course, but the truth. My phone's touch screen is dead but not the phone itself. The phone is on and works, but there's no way to tell it what to do--make a call, add a date to the calendar, text a friend. Nothing. 


Press, poke, push. Yeah, nothing.

The new phone came in and I've set it up. Now to restore factory settings on the old one. The directions are easy: turn off the phone, press buttons, press more buttons, press even more buttons, done. 

Except. 
Oops, the phone doesn't turn off. 

And. 
There's no getting to the battery without the gadget. You know, the gadget that opens the case to get to the innards. That gadget. The one trustworthy people shouldn't need and don't have access to. 

All photos from Google Images
Ahh, just let the battery wind down. The phone will die naturally. Then plug it to the charger and reread the directions. Once the battery has a tiny charge, go. 


But there are husbands who mean well. The ones who don't ask questions, just do the sweet things that you didn't get to do for yourself. Those who charge your old phone after you've waited three days for it to die. 

2 comments:

Colleen said...

Hi Mary, a friend of mine has that very phone and all those problems. When she first got it for her birthday I thought it was really cool, unlike my flip phone that people have asked me which museum I got it out of !
Sometimes simple is better. Almost all of our farm equipment is now computerized - the combine has a large monitor that, well, monitors everything. Years ago , when something wasn't working we could take it apart and fix it ourselves - not so anymore !
Thanks for leaving the lovely comment on my blog.
Colleen

Kaja said...

I have a Samsung Galaxy, though an older model, and the touch screen is going on that too. I have found the bits round the sides still work though. It's a pain but it keeps me going for now.