My Nexus 4 just committed suicide

[George Hopkins]

Sitting at my desk, I decide to take a look at my Nexus 4 to check if I'd had a reply to a text message I'd sent, and when I opened the case, I found a nasty surprise; a massive crack had appeared. This seems to have just happened completely randomly as it was fine a few minutes earlier, no drops occurred, it was simply gently put down, not even on the hard desk, but on top of my Nexus 10's leather case. Understandably, I'm quite annoyed at this. I knew these phones were fragile, but I didn't even drop it, it's just self destructed and I now appear to be looking down the barrel at a ?120 repair job.

Just a bit of background, I've had the phone since a few weeks after release, and loved it. I've also made sure to be very careful with it and it's lived in a case its whole life, as I'm aware it's basically a slab of glass, a material which has a tendency to shatter when dropped. I'm at work at the moment, and my only other camera device is my Nexus 10, so the photos are poor quality, but I'll try to take some better ones when I get home with my proper camera. Basically, there's no evidence of a drop anywhere on the phone, the silver bezel is pristine and the area where the crack starts is a slightly unusual place. It looks like a stress fracture to me. Very odd.

Can anyone tell me where I stand with this, in terms of getting it repaired? Do I have a chance at getting it done for no charge, or will I definitely have to suck it up and pay ?120?

 

[Citizen Coyote]

So does the phone no longer work, or is the screen just cracked?

 

[Captainbob767]

Maybe it was dropped, or you had it in your pocket and sat on it, but in my experience, I have never had glass just break unless something hits it, or it hits something, or is stressed in some way.

 

[George Hopkins]

The phone is no longer responsive to touch, making it unusable. It wasn't actually in my pocket, it was sitting in front of my keyboard, on my desk at work, on top of my Nexus 10s leather case. I'd sent a text from it a few minutes earlier and was just checking if I'd had a reply yet when noticed the crack. At first I thought it was a hair. This is incredibly annoying though, especially as I can't unlock my phone due to the borked screen, therefore can't get all my photos/game saves off

 

[frenziedfemale]

You may be able to get your pics if you connect it to a PC. Unfortunately I haven't heard of anyone getting their screen replaced on warranty. You are not the only one around these forums that say a crack has randomly appeared, but haven't seen one win the battle with LG.

 

[George Hopkins]

You may be able to get your pics if you connect it to a PC. Unfortunately I haven't heard of anyone getting their screen replaced on warranty. You are not the only one around these forums that say a crack has randomly appeared, but haven't seen one win the battle with LG.

I'll try to get it sorted for free, but as you say, I can't see it being easy. Safe to say I'm not buying an LG phone again though. Once I've got it repaired, I think I'll sell it and buy something else, something tougher. Livid doesn't quite cover it! I think it's even more annoying that it's not my fault; even if I'd dropped it from a fairly small height and it cracked, I'd still put it down to being my own stupid fault for dropping it, but I haven't, and the phone is absolutely pristine. No damage to suggest there's been any impact at all. It's a really tiny crack, as in small enough that you can't even see it if you're looking at the phone straight on, definitely not the sort of crack you get from an impact. I'm not sure what could have caused it, if not a manufacturing defect. My use has been pretty typical, and I've been careful with the phone, knowing how fragile they tend to be, which shows in the general condition of it.

Unfortunately regarding my files, it appears when I connect it to the PC, but the actual storage won't appear until the phone's unlocked, which I physically can't do

 

[frenziedfemale]

That totally sucks. I wish you luck with your quest. Let us know how it works out with LG/Google. I am currently looking to upgrade my sons phone and the price of the N4 is perfect. Also I have one and love it, but he is a typical 17 year old and I have concerns about the glass screen and back in his case. Obviously iphones are out as they too have a glass screen prone to breaking. It is a tough call. I may go the N4 route with a good screen protector and case, but the jury is still out.

 

[chetan8905]

I think that you can still plug in a USB OTG cable and a USB mouse to access your Nexus 4. Honestly, I'm not sure if you can with the nexus 4 but I think you can (it can't actually work with USB storage). Just saying - is worth trying as they may factory reset your phone.

Unlock your phone with the mouse and get the files as you can then access the storage (and do whatever else you need to do)

Good luck.

 

[chetan8905]

I think that you can still plug in a USB OTG cable and a USB mouse to access your Nexus 4. Honestly, I'm not sure if you can with the nexus 4 but I think you can (it can't actually work with USB storage). Just saying - is worth trying as they may factory reset your phone.

Unlock your phone with the mouse and get the files as you can then access the storage (and do whatever else you need to do)

Good luck.

Okay - I checked and on stock, you unfortunately cannot connect any USB OTG devices - so no nice. If you've used a bluetooth mouse with it, I suppose it would still work.

 

[George Hopkins]

Thanks, not sure I'd recommend giving this phone to a typical 17 year old though, back when I was 17 I had a Nokia NGage (don't laugh!) which I wasn't careful with at all, thankfully phones were a lot tougher back then. No luck with plugging a mouse in unfortunately; it doesn't even seem to power the mouse up. I'll try to find a powered USB hub to try it on tomorrow. EDIT: Just seen your reply that you can't use USB OTG on the Nexus 4, that sucks, but thanks anyway. I can report that the mouse works on my Nexus 10 though, which whilst irrelevant, is very cool and I didn't realise I could do it; It will make playing games like openTTD far far easier. Anyway, I've gone off topic slightly. I'll definitely be selling the 4 once it's repaired though, even though it's a really great phone to use. Generally I'm quite careful with phones, and I've been especially careful with this one due to its inherent fragility (a friend of mine actually dropped his N4 last week from about 2 feet and smashed it completely) but the fact it broke without me dropping, or even stressing it is just too much for me to handle; I can't even blame myself for the crack. I realise that arguing with LG is probably futile, but I can't see this being anything other than a manufacturing defect, and why should I be responsible for paying for that?