What To Do If You Drop Your N82 In Water? Can It Be Saved?

Perhaps the scariest thing that can happen to your device is you drop it in water. I personally have never dropped a cellphone in water *knock on wood*. I was actually pushed into a swimming pool by my brother and my digital camera was in my pocket. I took some steps to recover it and the darned thing worked great except for the exposure, it was severely off so I gave it away. A comment left here a few days ago inspired me to write this post. Poor Ammi dropped the N82 in the toilet, amazingly it still works although there are now battery problems.

This comment also reminded me of an article that Rafe Blandford from All About Symbian wrote awhile back ago. He dropped his E71 in the water - it was fully submerged. After jumping into the pond waste deep he was able to fish it out. I don't think he's updated us yet with the outcome.

So what to do if your Nokia N82 gets wet? Can water damage be fixed?

Here are a few steps you can take to try and salvage the phone...

1. Do not attempt to turn the device back on.
2. Immediately remove the battery.
3. If you know how - take apart the phone the best you could, especially the electronics.
4. Dry everything off carefully with a soft towel.
5. Put all the components in a water absorbing material like rice, and store in a dry environment for at least 36 hours. I recommend two full days.
6. Put it all back together and pray for the best.

And from what I've read - DO NOT USE A BLOW DRYER ON IT.

It's also a good idea to get a new battery, as it will probably be damaged. Your phone might turn back on, although you might notice a few problems with it. More than likely you'll still have charging problems, but at least it turns on.

Update! After googling around for more cases, I found an interesting forum posting. This person dropped there N82 in water, and it still works fine. The user nokiajem says...

Hi again...for future info in case someone else does this I would definitely recommend the distilled water method....I didn't use it but I imagine 100% it would work. The reason I say this is that my N82 was under water for somewhere between 5-10 secs in the pond and I left it to dry out for a week or so and now it works fine! At first the screen, camera, and everything in fact seemed screwed up...but once dried it is completely back to normal. So, I figure that if it is already wet, then distilled water won't make it worse, it will in fact help by cleaning. One thing I would point out though, is to get the battery, sim and sd card asap after you get it out of the water, and resist the urge to try it or turn it on until the screen and camera show now signs of dampness. Just make sure it is thoroughly dry before trying. As you can imagine , I am pretty happy!

I've never tried the distilled water method so I won't personally recommend this.

Of course this is a "try at your own risk" article with no gurantees. So don't come yelling at me if it doesn't work.

Have you ever dropped your N82 in water, or any phone for that matter? What steps do you recommend?

Sources: AllAboutSymbian.com and Wikihow.com