I have a Motorola Droid which is several years old. The micro-USB port on the phone broke, such that I cannot insert a charger. I’m heading out to the store over lunch, but thought I’d ask here first. Is that something that is repairable, or do I need to get a new phone.
Second question, if I buy a new phone, will I be able to load all of my contacts, photos, and videos onto the new phone?
(Yes - I am THAT ignorant about technology! :o)
you’d most likely need to get a new micro USB header, open up the phone, de-solder the old one off of the board, and solder on the new one. Doable, but the pins are very small and surface-mount soldered so you need some degree of skill and the proper soldering equipment.
Yeah - I wasn’t imagining I’d do it myself. Just trying to prep for whatever sales job I face at the store.
Searching on-line, I see a cell phone repair shop a few miles away. Might be worth a drive before dropping several hundred $ on a new phone. Will give them a call in a couple of hours.
BTW, I like that my current phone has a slide out keyboard - which I prefer to touchpad. Other than this port, my current phone satisfies all of my cellphone needs.
One of those cell phone repair shops should be able to repair the usb connection, I imagine it’s a fairly common item that breaks. But, the cost to do so is most very likely more that the cost of a new similar phone or buying the same model off of eBay.
The droid is Android based, should be very easy to save everything to the Goggle Cloud and reload everything onto the phone. I’d recommend getting something newer, like a Samsung Note 4 as it is a very stable phone that has been out there for a while.
After a little more searching, I see there is a shop I could walk to from work! Figure it is worth a shot. The first 2 reviews were folk pleased with the repair of their ports!
Will have to see what a new phone would cost, so I can compare it to the repair.
Like I said, this phone has served all of my needs without a single issue for the past 3+ years. I have no desire to figure out a new system. (I have a total of 1 app! I use my phone to make and receive calls and texts, and do the occasional search. Hell, if my old Razr had a alphanumeric keyboard, I’d happily still be using THAT! :D)
Plus, in this current age of disposability, planned obsolescence, and IMO waste, this old fogey finds the idea of repairing something appealing…
I just had this exact repair done on my Samsung S4 two months ago. The charging port went bad, and connecting a cable didn’t charge it or connect it to a PC. I paid a local repair shop $49 to replace the port, and it works fine. I checked with several local repair shops, and the prices ranged from $49 to $79. Since I take good care of my phone (38 months old when I had it repaired in September), I thought it was worthwhile to try this repair, and I’m glad I did. Even a used replacement phone would have cost more, and I would have had to do all of the transfer and setup stuff.
The repair shop gave me a loaner phone for the week they had mine (I moved my SIM card from my phone to the loaner). I didn’t download any apps on the loaner, but at least I was able to make and receive calls and texts and surf the internet.
Awesome.
Will let you know what I find out.
I know eventually I’ll miss having my cell, but for the brief time so far, it has been kinda nice not having it. E-mailed my kids last night to tell them to e-mail me or call my landlines at home/work. Called my wife this a.m. from the work landline. Able to use my computers for any internet stuff…
I just don’t have all that much in my life that HAS to be handled immediately and remotely!
Some Droid models support wireless charging. If yours does, and you only use the USB port for charging and not for data transfer, you could get a wireless charger like this for less than $10.
–Mark
Shop closest to me had shut down. So I dropped it off at another shop nearby. Should be $65, ready tomorrow eve.
Resoldering the port is not how these repairs are generally done. That’s a last gasp method.
For the type of phone the OP seems to have, there will be daughter board at the bottom of the phone. These are sold on places like eBay for not much money.
Buy the board, open up the phone, remove a ribbon cable and possibly an antenna connection or two, undo a few small screws, put in new board, reverse the procedure. There are frequently YouTube videos showing you how to do this for your model or a similar one. It’s not all that technical of a job if the phone is easily opened.
If the connector is on the motherboard, the options are more limited: replacing the motherboard is costlier and requires more work. You might get into issues with locked-in phones, etc.
I managed to repair my LG-made Nexus charging port for just a few $. I found specific instructions for my phone on Youtube and the spare part on Amazon. The hardest part was disassembling the case, no soldering required.
Are you sure your micro-USB port isn’t just gunked up? They tend to collect dust and lint and then cannot accept a cable. Carefully cleaning it out with a toothpick is all it takes to restore it to like-new condition.
That was my first guess. Didn’t know how it happened - looked like there was something in there.
I tried to clean it out - couldn’t figure out how to. Nothing seemed to want to come out, and I didn’t want to jam around too hard in there.
I replaced the one on my Nexus 4 and it was SO EASY! The hardest part was getting the back cover off the phone, just gotta go slow and work your way around it, preferably using plastic tools.
I got the part from www.ifixit.com, they have illustrated tear downs of many devices as well as all the tools you might need.
$71.01 - works like a charm. Yippee!
Thank you for that link. I didn’t find anything so clear when I was figuring out what to do with my phone. I bookmarked the site for the future.
Good for you!