Waterproof mobile phone

[Bender]

There is alot to be said for a well constructed waterproof phone.

My current non Chinese Sony was sold as waterproof but then they said it is but don't take it in the water Hmmmmm.

It's a work phone so has a hard life, tonight it ended up submerged in self leveling mix, no idea if it all works as I had to rinse out under tap,speakers, charge port, headphone socket but so far so good.

It's looking more like next phone is going to be another Sony.

[Stu]

My P20 pro took a dunk in some concrete once if that helps  

 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

The way my day has gone I'd be ecstatic if my phone was encased in concrete.

[Stu]

spill the beans @Mississippi Bullfrog

[geofferz]

They always say don't put it in water. And the warranty doesn't cover water damage. But legit the first thing I did when I got my s10 was dunk it, and it's fine. 

[Six30]

walking back to our apartment in Paphos one evening after a few beers i chucked the mrs over my shoulder and chucked her in the pool ... but i fell  in with her ,  i got out pretty much straight away and then watched her flapping about and screaming for a bit then helped her out .

i had an iphone , which dried out and was fine , she  had a samsung which was fooked .

Edited November 30, 2020 by Six30

[Bender]

Received a call from my dad and discovered microphone didn't work, turned out it was full of latex leveling and set, good poke with needle seems to have fixed it.

[onesea]

There is an app to help clean water out of speakers ..  It works on Samsung, Huawei and Cubot phones.

Although oily bilge water seems to challenge the app.

My Huawei got tested waterproof to 2m for several hours until the tide went out.

[Bender]

It's all good now thanks  

[Tiggie]

My Pixel is supposed to be waterproof, haven't properly tested it though.

My Father-in-Iaws phones used to get ruined at his work. He was a HGV mechanic and also did a lot of welding. Phone used to get filled with metal filings, especially around the speaker area (magnetic) and would end up going funny eventually. This was work phones not personal ones and they always supplied him with the cheap £20 stuff. He went through loads 

[Bender]

16 minutes ago, Tiggie said:

My Pixel is supposed to be waterproof, haven't properly tested it though.

My Father-in-Iaws phones used to get ruined at his work. He was a HGV mechanic and also did a lot of welding. Phone used to get filled with metal filings, especially around the speaker area (magnetic) and would end up going funny eventually. This was work phones not personal ones and they always supplied him with the cheap £20 stuff. He went through loads 

I would like a pixel but I'm still on an anti Chinese mission

And the latest round of the spat with Australia dosen't make me any more willing to change that

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

3 hours ago, Stu said:

spill the beans @Mississippi Bullfrog

Leaving out a serious issue which I won't go into - but let's just say I needed to make a lot of calls  - and my mobile is proving to be a pain.

We live in a rural area where the signal is very weak, most of the time none existant. So following the advice to go to EE and use WiFi calling that seemed the way to go. Except it doesn't work, the call quality is lousy and the connection drops constantly.

To be fair EE have been helpful. The problem is that originally WiFi preferred meant just that. If you switched WiFi calling on then all calls went via the WiFi. Not any more - now the system is designed to switch back to the mobile signal no matter how weak it might be. We get no bars showing and can't make calls on mobile signal, but there is just enough to randomly switch WiFi calling off and to interfere with the connection even when it does work.

The suggested solution is to switch 4g off (which you can't do on my wife's phone - it is too clever and won't let a mere human being meddle with its setting on that score).

They had a working system until a while back when WiFi preferred meant that the system only used WiFi and ignored the mobile signal, but that has been superceded by a much worse system that allows a very weak mobile signal to turn WiFi calling off. 

In desparation I turned aeroplane mode on to kill the phone's ability to connect to the mobile signal, then turned WiFi back on, and that seems to work. 

 

[Tiggie]

Is there any mainstream phone at the moment that isn't made in China? I cant think of one off top of my head 

[Bender]

@Mississippi Bullfrog I was about to suggest flight mode with WiFi.

The WiFi calling is a feature of the phone and not the network provider

@Tiggie Samsung and Sony are main contenders 

[Tiggie]

Just looked and saw that most Samsungs are made in Vietnam 

[Bender]

Yup I've looked at them all, a few others but nothing I would want, only thing putting me off Sony is the bloody length of the phone.

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

28 minutes ago, Bender said:

@Mississippi Bullfrog I was about to suggest flight mode with WiFi.

The WiFi calling is a feature of the phone and not the network provider

@Tiggie

I read that EE WiFi calling worked differently to other networks until recently. They used to have it so if you had WiFi calling enabled the phone would always use it and not the mobile network. Other networks had it so that the WiFi was dropped if the phone registered a network signal, which is how EE now operates.

I get that the phone has to have the function but when I spoke to EE they said there were settings they could tweak at their end which would improve things if turning off 4g didn't work. The guy is ringing me back on Wednesday. 

[Bender]

Far as I'm aware it's down to the phone and how it works,Android anyway, I've had to use flight mode to get mine to do that, works the same no matter which or who's WiFi I connect to.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

I’m on EE and can turn mobile data off to use only wifi or turn wifi off to use just 4G. That’s on an iPhone. 
I have the opposite problem though our broadband is RUBBISH so I have to keep the wifi off and just use 4G. 

[Bender]

WiFi calling is seperate from data settings, most phones you can turn mobile data off, but if you have good mobile data you probably have a phone signal capable of making a call so don't need to rely on WiFi to make a call, if that makes sense.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

Yer it does.
You can turn on n off wifi calling separately from other wifi uses.  

On my iPhone turning off mobile data does completely disable all network connection including calls it doesn’t just disable data which surprised me cos I thought you could still make network phone calls with the data disabled, apparently not. 

[onesea]

I live in an area with a dodgy mobile network signal.

I find that if calling from home and they have Whatapp the call quality is significantly better.

Starting to think that Whatapp calls are better than telephone calls.

My sister lives abroad we whatapp routinely and call quality isn't bad even driving down the road.

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

8 hours ago, Bender said:

Far as I'm aware it's down to the phone and how it works,Android anyway, I've had to use flight mode to get mine to do that, works the same no matter which or who's WiFi I connect to.

I remembered that we had to switch to EE to get wifi calling. Not all networks offer it. You do need a compatible phone of course, but the network has to support it.

[Bender]

17 minutes ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

I remembered that we had to switch to EE to get wifi calling. Not all networks offer it. You do need a compatible phone of course, but the network has to support it.

Vodafone, 3 and o2 support WiFi calling? 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Just now, Bender said:

Vodafone, 3 and o2 support WiFi calling? 

We were with Tesco before as it was dirt cheap and the signal worked where we used to live - I think they use O2, but they don't offer wifi calling, or at least they didn't last year when we moved house.