Damage report.
- To the upper right of the yellow box, transformer shattered.
- To the left of the yellow box, outputs of chip fried.
- Connector and motherboard to connector fried.
- Components to the right of the processor fried.
This 16gb White 3G phone took on less than a tablespoon of salty sea water by the previous owner. On a 2G phone this wouldn't have been much damage at all. The flex cable would have shorted out before it got to the motherboard 8 out of 10 times. If it goes in the headphone jack first, it gets the digitizer first and pops the flex cable from the amp draw second. Aside of the extremely risky task of replacing the flex cable, most 2G phones that take on water damage are an easy fix provided it doesn't get the digitizer.
3G phones however have a solid power supply straight from the battery to the main portion of the phones motherboard and they don't take water nearly as well. The guys that are used to buying the water damaged 2G phones expecting a quick fix are S.O.L. as the 3G phones are a much more sensitive phone to nearly every element in every way. They don't take in air moisture well, they don't take any saturation of liquids well without nearly total devastation, and they are not good with impacts since they have a glass/ferrite component almost dead center in the middle of the Motherboard that usually cracks on impact putting the phone into "needs service" mode.
- To the upper right of the yellow box, transformer shattered.
- To the left of the yellow box, outputs of chip fried.
- Connector and motherboard to connector fried.
- Components to the right of the processor fried.
This 16gb White 3G phone took on less than a tablespoon of salty sea water by the previous owner. On a 2G phone this wouldn't have been much damage at all. The flex cable would have shorted out before it got to the motherboard 8 out of 10 times. If it goes in the headphone jack first, it gets the digitizer first and pops the flex cable from the amp draw second. Aside of the extremely risky task of replacing the flex cable, most 2G phones that take on water damage are an easy fix provided it doesn't get the digitizer.
3G phones however have a solid power supply straight from the battery to the main portion of the phones motherboard and they don't take water nearly as well. The guys that are used to buying the water damaged 2G phones expecting a quick fix are S.O.L. as the 3G phones are a much more sensitive phone to nearly every element in every way. They don't take in air moisture well, they don't take any saturation of liquids well without nearly total devastation, and they are not good with impacts since they have a glass/ferrite component almost dead center in the middle of the Motherboard that usually cracks on impact putting the phone into "needs service" mode.


