was pulling a piece of paper out of my pocket and my iphone decided to come too and dropped onto concrete and the whole screen smashed. i have nothing to take a photo of it with but it looks like this (google image) -

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1107/1090366099_6ebf65ff7f.jpg?v=0


first of all.. are you serious? 1m drop and the whole screen decides to disintegrate. far out.

when I got it i signed up for the insurance which on my bill says 'essential insurance monthly access' which i googled and find out it coves accidental damage (thank f***!!!!!!)

seeing as how the insurance claims phone number doesn't open again until Monday I have a question for anyone who's made a claim before..

that link says $50 excess for repairs, $100 for replacement.. if I get it replaced do I have to surrender the damaged phone?

anyway moral of the story if you're gonna drop your phone make sure its not an iphone which can't handle the slightest of accidents and should always be transported in cotton wool.

as a general insurance rule yes you surrender all replacements.

Why dont you call someone who cares... oh wait.

Dude that f***ing sucks. I'm totally surprised that it would break so badly from such a small drop. I dropped my iPod touch onto concrete, and came up with barely a scratch. A mate had his iphone in his pocket and dropped some weights on it (of course only sandwiched by his leg) and it only had some minor cracks around the backing edges.

My guess is you would have to give back the iPhone when you get a replacement, or else, how would they know you're not just hoarding iPhones?

You must have been unlucky bud, sorry to hear that. Check out test PC world did. They do drop tests onto a concrete sidewalk from full height toward the end of the vid and it comes up trumps. I've dropped mine a couple of times and it still looks brand new.

Yeh that's a pretty sweet vid. Drop any of the Nokias that I've owned in the past and they explode like cluster bombs.

hehe Billy. This vis shows a bit of that going on.

A friend of mine dropped her iphone off a table and it cracked the screen in the corner only because it landed on a small pepple right at the edge of the screen. Still works perfectly though.

lol that video just rubs it in E.T.. i must have nailed it on just the right angle (thats what she said), unless they change something in the 3g?

lol ET that first phone is the exact Nokia I used to use before the iPhone.

Ouch, I dropped mine on the concrete - literally forgot to open my pocket and just dropped it onto the driveway - and all I got was a tiny scuff mark on the corner where it made land ho'

I have a thin orange rubber skin on my iphone.
For an ebay special I am super impressed with it.

Fits incredibly well and the holes are lined up perfectly for the cable plug, mute switch and headphone jack.

Not only does it provide a bit of drop cushioning its also grippy so it doesn't slide of desks etc.

I like orange too so that is definitely win.

For $7 it has surpassed my expectations.
f***it I am that impressed with it I took some pics.

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/rubbachikin/DSC06651.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/rubbachikin/DSC06654.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/rubbachikin/DSC06653.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/rubbachikin/DSC06655.jpg

last edited by rubba-chikin at 22:51:11 07/Nov/08

I dropped my nokia from 3 stories up, and it worked fine afterwards, with only a few scratches. <3

so far my motorola v360 has been in the pool.. prob 10x, vomitted on 3 that i can recall, dropped off multi storied apartments and still going strong after like 3-4 years.

vomitted on 3 that i can recall

And you still put it to your head and to on?!

i would probably girly up and cry if that happened to my iphone

rubba, i wouldn't call that cover thin. Checkout bodyguardz.com seeing how a mate's generic ebay-bought iphone protector film looks after even less time than mine I think it's money very well spent.

It hasn't really added much at all that I've noticed, yeah its slightly fatter but it hasn't posed any problems.

I like the feel of it in my hand as well, it won't be slipping out of my grasp anytime soon.

my friend just picked up his replacement iPhone today from the Optus. He left it in his pants when he went for a swim and got it replaced under the insurance. it cost him the $100 excess and he just returned the phone. Got a new one complete with box and accessories so now he has 2 sets of headphones and dock connectors.

I saw a lady riding a bike down Ann St and dropped her phone out of her basket (who puts a phone in an open basket...but anyway). I picked it up, handed it to her. Worked fine. Had some scratches on the edge, but otherwise held up sweet apparently. Probably exploded and burned her house down while she was charging it overnight though.

Are you wanting to know how much it is going to cost to fix epic?

What model iPhone is it 8gb or 16gb?

And on repairs/replacements it's gonna be one of 2 things

Send to optus for repair won't see iPhone for like 3 weeks+

Last I checked optus doesn't replace iPhone's (that what I am hearing from people who call us up to get their phones fixed)

Or optus will laugh at you and tell you to contact apple care where your optus insurance doesn't mean s*** but we have our own repair/replacement options but they are a bit pricey send me a PM and I'll give you the details if you want to know.

a mate of mine used to work for 3 and he used to deal with insurance claims

this is what he used to say

never, ever repair a phone. it's never the same again. no matter what, claim this:

' i was on the back of a mates motorbike, and the phone fell out my pocket, hit a gutter/drain, smashed into a million pieces, i tried to retrieve some, found the sim card but not much. '

they will ship a new phone which is quicker and better.

i dunno how good this is, never tried it myself (i never own phones worth more than $100) but maybe it'll help.

Broken screens are classed as accidental damage and are not covered by the limited hardware warranty he's gonna be forking out money for the phone not matter what circumstance he throw's at them.

KungFuCamel - cheers for the info, did it take long for the replacement to come in?

Sover - its an 8gb 3g, black. I am interesting to know how much it would cost to repair, but I think its gonna be alot more then the 100$ to replace it via insurance

also f*** you all am i the only one who dropped it and had it smash? lol seams like everyone has a story to tell where their phone was fine.. why was i the unlucky one? :(

1m drop and it smashed? jeez I just threw mine a couple of metres across the room hard at the wall because it looked at me wrong (wooden wall not plasterboard) and it just bounced off and still happily phoning along.

^ haha whoop

8gb you sir are looking at $249 for repair through apple.

edit: Through optus no idea but they will probably charge the same if not more.

last edited by Sover at 13:49:56 08/Nov/08

do it yourself

If you don't trade the old phone in when you get a replacement, they'll just block the IMEI on the phone anyway. It will be useless as anything except spare parts.

And DEFINITELY try to get a new one rather than getting repairs. When they fix what's broken they'll just f*** something else up.

No they don't block the IMEI we charge you $700

Broken phone sucks :(

As an aside I repaired the broken LCD on my HTC that broke falling 1m onto the f***ing GRASS for $50 a little whlie back. Was a youtube repair walkthrough and some random Hong Kong Ebay parts. No problems so far!

I've replaced the battery on my old iPod once, and it was a piece of piss. If the parts for a new screen are going to be cheaper than the excess, it'd be worth a go (as long as everything else works fine). Judging from what I have found on other sites, the touch screen and LCD are two separate pieces, so you'll have to work out the extent of the damage before you do it yourself.

omg its a iphone mandarin!

a mate of mine used to work for 3 and he used to deal with insurance claims

No he didnt, because 3 never offered insurance....

Broken screens are classed as accidental damage and are not covered by the limited hardware warranty he's gonna be forking out money for the phone not matter what circumstance he throw's at them.

He clearly stated that he pays for the insurance plan which covers accidental damage, soooo...

ok eds, so i think it was hutchinsons telecom, or orange, or something strange

He clearly stated that he pays for the insurance plan which covers accidental damage, soooo...

Doesn't mean s*** they won't cover it or if they do they send them off to apple instead of "their" repair centres

ok eds, so i think it was hutchinsons telecom, or orange, or something strange

Hutchison Telecom (Hutchison Telecommunications Australia Limited - HTAL) owns Orange (no longer operational CDMA network) and 3 Mobile. Hutchison, including both Orange and 3 have never had an insurance department or even offered insurance on their phones.

My former boss there now runs their servicing centre on Park Rd. If you have a problem with a phone, you can walk in off the street and have it looked at. If it's broken and covered by warranty, they'll fix it/replace it for you. However, this is the closest they've ever gotten to insurance and it's only been operational for about a year.

He clearly stated that he pays for the insurance plan which covers accidental damage, soooo...


Doesn't mean s*** they won't cover it or if they do they send them off to apple instead of "their" repair centres

I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but (obviously pursuant to the terms within the insurance contract) an insurance policy (read - not a warranty. Two complete different kettles of fish) that advertises itself as covering "accidental damage" would likely include this sort of damage which will be fixed/replaced subsequent to paying the respective excess.

As infi said on page 1, the general rule in insurance contracts is they "trade" the damaged asset from the insured person for a new, identical one. Similar to with car insurance, where they "buy" the write-offs for the insured amount. You don't get to keep anything.

ok eds, so i think it was hutchinsons telecom, or orange, or something strange

Everything Gesthemene said, as we worked together.

Hutch doesn't have insurance and never has, and my guess is they never will.

okey doke, well it seems i've got my wires crossed somewhere, but anyway, on what to do insurance claim wise, thats what he told me. makes sense to me.

i think it took him a couple of weeks - he called them up last week and they told him it would be at the queen st store by the middle of this week. he didn't get any call so yesterday when we were in the city he went in and was able to pick it up.

cheers mate :) will call on monday. phone is still 100% operational just the glass is smashed to f***.. what a shame :(

If it's just the glass, it's definitely worth spending some time seeing if you can get a kit to replace it yourself!

Let us know how it turns out though so we know what to do when it happens to one of us:) Epic, you've basically taken one for the team.

Wouldn't replacing the screen himself void any warranty or insurance?

I thought the outcome of this thread was that he is best off claiming that the phone was lost/stolen???

That's what I thought. Claim phone is stolen, get a new phone, old phone's IMEI gets blocked, give old phone to kid to use as a toy.

precisely what crizane said. best plan of the lot. OP ends up with a brand new phone at minimal cost.

What's the IMEI? So no sort of hacking/jailbreaking can get around it??

hmm kinda trying to avoid any fraud here lol. my plan does cover accidental damage so am tempted to jsut tell the truth..

on the other hand I could say i lost it and get a new one for 100$, fix the screen and hope some iphone dev team lets me haxor the imei in the future.. hmmmz

i leaning towards being a good epic and telling the truth.

The IMEI is a code unique to every phone (kind of like a MAC address). If your phone gets stolen etc, they can block the IMEI from being used on Australian mobile networks. According to the wiki there are work arounds, but it's illegal to do so in some countries. I have NFI what the legal nature is in Australia. It wouldn't surprise me if it were illegal here.

<3 google

so i bet you're definitely gonna go the stolen/smashed into smithereens story now...

Hm. Get new phone on insurance, get screen on old one repaired, change IMEI on old iPhone, sell to a friend at mate's rates.

Holy crap, changing the IMEI on the iPhone can't be that easy though... holy crap. If this is for real, it would be so easy to scam an extra iPhone out of Optus.

You'd be committing insurance fraud/theft though...

Why don't you just call optus and ask? Say you are curious at what would happen if the screen was too smash and you had insurance on the phone..................

But maybe contact apple and see? It seems they put a lot of effort into the screen not to smash and yours just happens to do it falling from 1m? Ever thought the phone was screen was faulty? Give apple a call and find out on what their policy is.

but will it blend??



last edited by Martz at 05:25:57 10/Nov/08

GAHAHA, I'd love to rock up to an Optus service department with teh blended iPhone still in the jug. "Uhm. My iPhone accidentally fell into a blender."

my home button stopped working =( gonna take it in to optarse at indro today and see what they can do

well I called up the insurance place and they took my details and gave me a claim number. now i have to take it to an optus store for 'assessment' which could take up to 10 days..

the chick on the phone said there is no excess for repairs or replacement.. despite what the website says. so i'm happy about that ! :)

update summary:

got my phone back today
it was replaced with a new one
cost me $0
itunes let me restore my backup even tho the imei was different

result: took ages but im happy

So how much per month do you spend on insurance???

Optus just sent me a screen protector absolutely free. This thing is completely invisible - I can't believe how nice it is. Certainly won't protect the screen from smashes, but definitely from minor surface scratches.

As an FYI for unlocking iPhones with optus:

Q: Will the iPhone handset be locked to the Optus Network?

A: Yes. The iPhone will be locked to the Optus Network.

If you connect the iPhone to a Post-Paid (on account) contract you are able to unlock the handset by calling Optus Customer Service. No unlocking fee is applicable.

With Optus Pre-Paid an $80 fee applies if network locking is removed within the first 6 months from the activation date. Alternatively, the customer needs to have recharged up to the value of $80.

http://smb.optus.com.au/web/ocaportal.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Template_wRHS&FP=/smallbusiness/mobile/mobilephones/iphone3G/iphonefaqs&site=smallbusiness

but definitely from minor surface scratches.

Can you even get them? I've heard of people applying keys and knives to the screen, without any scratches. The only damage I've heard of is fractures and cracks (which to the untrained eye can look like scratches) caused by physical impact or excessive pressure on the whole unit.

I bought a leather case for my Touch but only to protect it from what I mentioned above (pressure + impact), I never applied the screen protector and don't really plan to.

Videos of keys/knives:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=iLgVfcj41uM
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=m-sRbeBehNs
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=FUR70xhmqv4

last edited by parabol at 22:25:17 09/Dec/08

its like $7 or a month or something.

Can you even get them? I've heard of people applying keys and knives to the screen, without any scratches. The only damage I've heard of is fractures and cracks (which to the untrained eye can look like scratches) caused by physical impact or excessive pressure on the whole unit.

I bought a leather case for my Touch but only to protect it from what I mentioned above (pressure + impact), I never applied the screen protector and don't really plan to.

My ~year old iPod has 2 minor scratches - they are very small, but still noticeable. No idea how they happened, but my guess would be that I had a bit of sand or dirt on the cloth I wiped them with.

My iPhone looks like it has to tiny scratches UNDER the screen! Fortunately they're both up the top and nowhere near the picture... I have no clue about those ones...

Yeah, I had my touch for a few weeks with only a leather case because I had seen the keys scratch test things, and it now has a minor surface scratch. It's nothing bad, but slightly annoying to know I could have prevented it. I how have an awesome clear screen protector.