I have a $300 Palm Tungsten T3 with a gorgeous slide-out 320 x 480 pixel screen, a powerful 400 MHz Intel XScale processor, and loads of software that turns my T3 into an organizer, a game console, an entertainment player (plays mp3, avi, mpg). It’s literally a computer in your hand. Whenever playing bejeweled, sudoku, chess, or listening to mp3 songs or watching my son’s piano videos, I prefer the handy little technological marvel over iPod or other players for its great versatility.
But like all good things, one day my wonderful PDA died! - Uh, at least I thought so, for an agonizing while.
It started on a gloomy day. I was woken up by my wife, who looked ominously distraught:”Promise me that you’ll not get angry?” Sensing something’s happening, I reluctantly obliged. “Oh well, here it goes: I washed your PDA in our washing machine”. I was stunned:”What?! You’re joking right?” But she’s definitely not smiling. I rushed downstairs to check on my PDA, and there it lied on the table, cold and wet, lifeless. Its once-bright-n-beautiful screen soaked with water, the paint peeled off its leather cover in patches, but other than that, it looked almost nicer - after all, it IS CLEANER.
In utter despair, I reflectively tried to turn the power on, knowing that it simply could not work. Miracle did not happen. I turned to wife:”How long was it washed?”. “30 minutes”. Absent-mindedly, I interrogated:”What was the cycle used?”. “Normal load, warm water”. As if it mattered at all. There it was, my valued mini-computer, washed for a full 30 minutes and spun-dried afterwards. Its poor electronics were first short-circuited, then almost pulled apart by centrifugal forces, and its battery was likely shot. I fell into the chair:”All right, you’ve done it - say goodbye to our beloved PDA now”. Ever so pessimistic, wife was suspiciously a lot more optimistic than I was - as the PDA’s not hers - “Well, maybe we could wait till it dries and it may just work”. Yeah right, like that’s gonna happen. “How could YOU know?” I bluntly asked. “Well, I used to have this non-waterproof little electronic watch, and once it fell into water. I just put it under a lamp, and when it dried up, it worked again”. “A cheap electronic watch? It hardly has any circuitry, and its battery’s easily replaced! We’re talking about a 400 MHz computer right now, with millions of ICs powered by a rechargeable battery! Have you ever seen someone dropping a computer into water and just put it under a lamp and get it back?” Even the most insane dreamer would have to agree that a 30-minute washing cycle in a topload laundry machine would’ve killed a 400 MHz computer.