(en) It only needed... rest?
One unfortunate day in May… May 17th, to be exact… my phone died. For the second time.
My phone is a Poco X3 Pro, which is famous for having a lot of units die irrecoverably because of (I think) overheating issues. I don’t know the specifics (or whether this is correct or not), but as far as I know, the phone has a very strong SOC despite the price point, and it came at the cost of proper heat/power management.
And it unfortunately happened to me, back in April last year (2023). I still remember the last moments: it was freezing on the daily missions screen of Princess Connect. I held on the power button, forcing it to restart. Though it powered off, it did not come back on again.
So I took it to a Xiaomi service center. Since it’s still under (extended) warranty, they’ll replace the board free of charge. I’ll lose my entire data, though. Sure, I said, and handed the phone off to them. The following week, it came back by mail, and it turns on like a new phone.
I noticed that the gaming performance is weaker than before. I think they implemented a limiter in the hardware or in the software (since it came with a newer OS version than I initially had (I deliberately did not update it (because cheap Chinese phone OS’s are unpredictable))) to prevent more phone-deaths.
And so things went swimmingly from then on. But then, one year later, it died again.
I was in the train going home, and I wanted to play games. So I booted up Gakuen Idolmaster, which had crazy graphics. I was sure my phone could take it, so I set the graphics to medium and played. Then it froze. Froze in a familiar way I recognized, one year ago. I sighed and held the power button down. Again, it powered off, but not coming back on again. For the second time.
When I got home, I put the phone into my closet and made it its final resting place. I’m in Japan now, where am I supposed to find a Xiaomi service center that takes an Indonesian phone? It’s better to buy a new one, methinks.
The past three weeks I’ve been considering what new phone to buy. Nothing Phone 2a looks decently midrange enough for my tastes, and I was in the middle of collecting mental resolution to finally go through with the checkout process. But one day (today), when I opened my closet and see my Poco lying down lifeless, I felt like trying for the last time.
I held the power button down. No response. “It’s been three weeks, maybe it’s out of juice or something,” I desperately thought as I connected it to its charger that I still use daily, and left it for a while.
Ten minutes later, I heard a familiar bootup sound of the MIUI. “You… just needed to… rest?” I chuckled. I swiped the pattern to unlock the screen lock, and everything was still there.
The first thing I did was rush to WhatsApp, relogged back in, and uploaded an archive backup of the chat between my brother and I.
Maybe one day it’ll die a third death. But I’m glad that my little phoenix just resurrected itself for me for the second time.