Scenario: water bottle opens in wife's purse, flooding everything, including her new Motorola e815 cell phone. We're talking total immersion here.
The phone was flaky that day and wouldn't hold a charge. I had high hopes, though. The water bottle was filled from one of those reverse osmosis/deionizer dispensers. 'Deionized' is the key concept here. Water is an insulator. When ionic substances, like salt, are dissolved in water, the solution becomes a very good conductor. I figured that there was a decent chance that everything would be OK once the phone dried out.
Many modern cell phones have a white dot under or near the battery. The dot turns red if the phone has been in the water. This feature allows manufacturers to deny warranty coverage to folks who go swimming with thier phones and fib about it. Supposedly the dot doesn't turn red unless the phone was _really_ immersed. A little bit of rain shouldn't do it.
After letting the phone dry overnight (it didn't actually 'take on' water - there was no sloshing sound when I shook it), I popped the back cover off and the dot was deep red. I compared it to mine (same model), whose dot was pure white. The battery was fully discharged and it wouldn't start up, even under AC power. I plugged it in and a couple of hours later it was functioning perfectly. So far it's been two days with no ill effects.
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