GTA02 is now an expensive brick

[Ian Darwin]

Lucas Lacroix wrote:
> I forgot to plug the Neo in last night, and now the battery is 
> completely dead. I cannot even get to the NOR boot. I've tried both 
> USB and the charger. I have tried with and without the battery. No 
> combination of these will get the phone to turn on so it can charge 
> the battery.
This is one of the most annoying misfeatures of the phone, I think 
everybody agrees.
>
> I'm saddened by the fact that a phone that was supposed to be released 
> to the masses can have such a blatant failing. Not only can it NOT 
> turn on when the battery has little or no charge, the APM service does 
> not turn the phone off to prevent this (note: all OTHER phones I have 
> ever used WILL turn off when the battery gets below some critical level).
> On top of this, if I ever expect to have a working phone, I have to 
> disable the only feature which should extend the battery life (read 
> that as: OpenMoko has fixed the WSoD problem by replacing it with the 
> BSoD - Black Screen of Death).
You've answered your own question in a roundabout way. There is no place 
that OM has said that the current *software* is ready for the masses. 
The fact that the software doesn't halt or suspend or shut down on low 
power is proof of this. The fact that it's software means it will 
eventually get remediated.
>
> I have looked at the work-arounds, and none of them have worked or are 
> doable. I refuse to "hardware hack" my phone with an external 4.5V 
> line to give it the initial charge. I also do not have access to a 
> charger that will work with this battery. Lastly, I do not have a 
> second battery.
>
Do you live in a part of the world where anybody uses Nokia phones? Do 
you have a friend or co-worker who knows you well enough to lend you 
their battery for 5 mins to jump-start your phone? If not, maybe you 
need to get out more :-)  Borrow their battery, insert it, boot up, plug 
in the charger, swap batteries, return the battery leaving your phone 
charging. On some cheaper Nokias you have to re-set the Nokia phone's 
date & time after this operation; I've not seen it lose any other 
information from the Nokia and I've done this 3 or 4 times (the rest of 
my family has mostly Nokias at present, and they're not switching until 
the OM is more consumer ready).