Palm Pre Screen Black Out

My Palm Pre over the last several months has been experiencing a touchscreen black out due to a bad connection. At least that’s my theory, the problem was very peculiar. I went on a trip to China recently and when I arrived in Hong Kong, the screen suddenly began to become yellow as if your cheap VGA cable had a kink in it. It continued to get worse until the screen finally became completely black. A couple weeks later I arrived back in the US to find that my phone had magically revived itself as I was walking through the airport. So naturally I thought it was a simple and mild case of SARS.

It blacked out again recently, first doing the yellowing and darkening as if the three colored lights in a 3-light projector were going off one by one. Curiously, when I would allow the phone to charge for long periods of time until it became nice and warm, the screen would briefly come back. Perhaps the heat allowed a loose connection to connect momentarily, but to no avail, I took it to my local Sprint store.

I have to say, my local Sprint store here in Orem Utah took pretty good care of me. All they needed was the phone and my phone number, and they asked me to come back in 15 minutes. I did so, at which time I waited nearly an hour to be helped. This was really the only low point of the visit. I walked off happy with a new Palm Pre, or at least a Palm Pre that was new to me. It was mysteriously wrapped in a different kind of cling wrap unlike new units, and was taken from a different pile of units than the new units, so said the cashier. So I’m thinking they’re refurbs.

That’s OK. My phone looks great and new and everything and I’m very happy to have a working unit.

Transferring the Palm Pre to me was interesting. It took a very long time while I sat at the desk, but it didn’t really work out ideally. The folks at Sprint apparently have the ability to take all of the data from your previous Pre including which Apps you had, and even the notes you have on your “stickies”. Kind of freaky. They didn’t however have any of my images, which were really what I wanted anyway, so I lost those. I suppose that would be a larger intrusion of privacy for Sprint to back that up for me without me knowing so I can understand that.

Overall I’m impressed with the willingness of the Orem Sprint folks to exchange the unit without asking questions and the overall non-hassle of the experience.