Is my phone bricked?

[jhacker00]

I left my phone in my car overnight last night. This was in NY and it was probably 25F outside. When I retrieved my phone in the morning, the phone was dead and very cold. I tried to turn it on, and nothing. I figured either the battery was dead or the cold was messing with the phone. So I plugged it into my charger and waited a bit. Hit the power button and still, nothing! Plugged in it for another two hours and still nothing.

I've tried lots of troubleshooting:
-Tried different chargers and cables.
-Tried battery pull, then holding power button for 60 seconds.
-Tried many resets of button combinations (volume up + home + power, volume down + home + power, etc.) - none worked.

What I haven't tried:
-I wanted to try another battery, but unfortunately don't have one available to test. At this point, I do not think it is the battery, however cannot be sure.

What I've noticed:
-When the phone is plugged in, nothing happens. No LED indicators blinking, no charging screen, etc.
-The only time I get action from the phone is when I insert the battery. When I do, the phone vibrates, I see the black samsung galaxy s4 screen for probably 1.5 seconds then it goes blank (aka the screen turns off). I can reproduce this by pulling the battery and putting it back in. But once the screen goes blank, the phone is totally unresponsive.
-Over the past few days, I noticed some weird behavior with the power button not turning off the screen with a quick tap. I spoke to Samsung and they confirmed the phone shouldn't auto-turn-on once I insert a battery. I dissembled the phone and made sure the power button wasn't stuck or malfunctioning. All seems fine.

Potential issues:
-The way I see it, the problem could be due to a dead battery or a battery that cannot charge because of a bad USB jack on the phone. I'd love to be able to isolate one of the issues before ordering the needed parts.

Does anybody else have any ideas or things I can try? Please help. I am out of ideas and desperately would like to get my phone back up and running.

 

[zedorda]

Extremely cold phone brought into a warm and likely more humid environment will cause condensation. Plugging that device into power before letting it warm up and dry will very likely cause a short circuit. I would say it is likely fried. Next time put the phone in a bowl of uncooked rice before bringing it inside and if possible putting it in a warm dry place first till it is room temp to the touch before attempting to power it ON.

 

[jhacker00]

Ugh. I am hoping this isn't the case, however definitely a possible scenario and something I obviously didn't think of. If my phone did short circuit, would it be able to boot to the black Samsung galaxy S4 screen?