Motorola KRZR K1: A strong swimmer

For years I've been bashing the Motorola brand of cell phones because its user interfaces SUCKED. Fast forward to 2007: they still SUCK, but each subsequent UI does seem to improve.

But this is not the reason I'm writing this post. The reason I am PRAISING Motorola today is not for its software, but for its hardware design.

Over the weekend, I visited Bassi Falls, near Pollock Pines, CA. The base of the falls is formed by gigantic slabs of granite--and when wet, they get slippery. Needless to say, I slipped and fell into a shallow pool and my cell phone got wet. Hoping it wouldn't be too damaged, I set all the pieces of the phone (battery door, battery, sim card, phone) on my shirt to dry.

At the end of the day, I went to put my shirt on. Everything would have been fine, except for the fact that the wind blew part of my shirt over the phone and I have a horrible memory. So as I pick up the shirt, my phone goes tumbling down the rock and into the ice cold 4 1/2 feet deep pool of water.

After 15 minutes of hemming and hawing about how cold it is and how it'll be no good if I pull it out, I finally decide to go in after it, for the good of mother nature--I didn't want to contribute to leeching chemicals into the natural fresh water stream.

After I pulled it out, I dried it out the best I could, popped in the battery for shits and giggles, and turned it on. Yes, it actually turned on. But then, it started freaking out and going into emergency calls and calling 9-1 (fortunately it wasn't able to add in the last 1 to complete the 9-1-1 call). So, I turned it off and let it try out the rest of the day.

Long story short, it took just one day of drying out on my patio on an 82 degree summer day, and the phone is back in action after being submerged for over 15 minutes in an ice cold pool of water 4 1/2 feet below the surface.

...now if Moto could only make its user interface as water-tight as its phones...