My daughter’s Samsung A727 has been damaged and won’t power on. The damage is to the single key on the keyboard that powers on the phone (the red “end call” key). All other keys and all other functions on the phone appear to be fine. I’m going to get the phone replaced but she would like to get some photos off the phone before trashing it. Is there some other way to power on the phone other than pressing that one key?
Does this phone have a SIM card? The photos may be stored there…
I’ve never, in ten year working with mobile phones, seen a sim card store any user data except phone numbers and a few texts. I don’t think your photos will be there.
Memory card would be helpful though. Photo’s are often on them.
Else you could try hooking the phone to a PC. A minority of phones will power on when connected to a data suite or allow data to be backed up without fully powering on.
A better bet would be a patch-job repair to the button that would let you power the phone on temporarily and transfer the files by whatever facility the phone has. (Infra-red, Bluetooth etc)
I found a microSD card on the ground (maybe it wasn’t a SIM card), but it had obvious Cell-phone photos and videos and ringtones on it…
I own an A727, and I don’t know of any way to power up the phone, other then the red button. Try esell’s suggestion of jury-rigging the button to get the thing on one last time.
Thanks, the phone has a memory card, but she says the photos aren’t there. I think the problem is that I added the card several weeks after we got the phone and, although I set it up to store the photos there, the photos previously taken are on the phone itself.
I took the phone completely apart and put it back together again hoping something might get disturbed and temporarily fix it, but no change. I couldn’t see any way to mess with the keyboard as it was all one integrated thin film. Any tips on how to patch that key switch?
Not to seem snarky, but why do you think it’s the switch? Maybe the switch is fine, and the phone is broken in some more fundamental way.
With the phone off, but plugged into the charger, pressing a key will light the keyboard for a few seconds. All the keys do this except that one. Furthermore, she was having problems with that key previously and it would intermittently not function.
Not snarky at all - definitely an appropriate question.
OK.
There are two types of keypads that I know about in use on cellphones:
- Carbon pellet (carbon pellet on the back of the elastomeric keypad makes contact with interdigitated pattern on PCB).
- Microswitch.
If you have type 1, just bridging the contacts (with a tweezer, say) will activate the switch. Try opening up the phone and exposing the PCB, then shorting the contacts.
If you have type 2, you will need to get access to the backside of the PCB, where the switch is soldered, and do the same thing.
Good luck.
Thanks. On this phone, the keypad is nowhere near the PCB. It appears to be a thin film of plastic, totally integrated to the buttons. I can’t figure out how to get inside there without destroying it (though at this point destruction is probably an option).
Hmmm… The buttons themselves are part and parcel of the keypad? I’ve never seen that before - usually it’s a rubber “keymat” that sits on top of the keypad, and you’d be able to carefully dissect the thing with an X-Acto blade to get at the actual contacts within.
Theoretically, it’s probably possible to bridge two contacts on the ribbon cable where it’s connected to the main PCB to simulate the button press, but the problem is figuring out which two contacts.
I just did a quick googling of the A727, and it appears that the keypads on these are universally awful, but not available as a repair part.
The phone shop might be able to retrieve the photos - they’ve got devices for programming and transferring phonebooks, and they may be able to wake up the phone with this. Check into this option before doing anything potentially harmful to the phone - ie: don’t break it any worse!
Yet another option would be to pick up a used A727 and plug its keypad into your daughter’s phone. Unfortunately, it looks like this model is too new for that to be an economical idea - they’re selling for $150+ on eBay now.
SIM cards are normally 32, 64 or recently 128 kilobytes, so not much room for image storage there.
You might try hooking the phone up to a computer with a data cable. I don’t know that Samsung phone, but some phones power up and work as usb mass storage when they are connected to a PC.
Uh huh! Two batteries?
flex727, if photos are not kept on the smart card then were are they kept? RAM or CMOS? By unplugging the battery did he wipe out the photos?
I believe most phones of this type have a nominal amount of non-volatile memory for storing stuff. Nothing gets wiped out by removing the battery.
This phone has 32MB of built in memory, and an option of adding a microSD card for additional storage. It is also very thin (sexy thin) which explains the unusual keypad configuration.