[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Reeves360:
EVO's Outer Water Indicator No More

Water Indicator Sticker ***Update***

I found out something very interesting today about my issue. HTC no longer puts the water damage indicator on the outside housing right under the batter cover. It looks like they made this change on the 3rd run of EVO's maybe second. My friend that had a 2nd run one had to get hers replaced so I can't double check. My other friend who had a 3rd gen EVO doesn't have the sticker that is directly under the battery cover. It looks like the stickers on the batteries are the same and I would bet they still have another sticker under the back red plate right next to the USB port.

Seems like this is a known change that Sprint and HTC aren't commenting on and Sprint is still using so they don't have to replace phones that normally they would have to.

Here's my original story:

I've loved my EVO for the 5 months that I've had it. I'm a new Sprint customer and had switched over from a g1 bought at launch.

I love HTC! I've had a HTC phone for the past 5 years starting with the Dash. My G1's ribbon cable to the flip out screen finally died about 18 months into my last contract with T-Mobile. T-Mobile would only give me the option to buy a new phone at the new 2 year contract price. At that time the best Android phone they had out was the myTouch 3G and I was looking for a bigger screen and a 1Ghz CPU. I don't think that it was logical choice to pay $100 for a replacement phone on an OEM defect that was pretty out of date already. Just to want a new faster phone a few months later so that Android would actually run correctly.

My EVO's charging port is dead now and you have to push down on the power cord to get it to charge.

Upon closer inspection it appears that the black plastic nub inside the mico-USB port has cracked on the left side. You can clearly see this plastic is there to hold the pins in the correct location to line up with the charging cord. Some of the plastic is actually missing and the far left gold pin is almost completely exposed on the top. On the other pins they are only exposed on the bottom of the black nub.

This appears to be a possible design flaw in the Micro-USB port its self as the black interior plastic piece for the pins is much smaller when compared to say a Mini-USB port. It seems to me that a better quality plastic on this part wouldn't have cracked and could handle the "stress" of the charging cord for which it is intended to be used with.

This issue when researched seems to only happen to people so far that have a EVO from the first round of production. It would seem logical that since the 2nd and 3rd round productions of this unit don't seem to have this problem yet that HTC has quietly addressed the issue as any good company would. It's ashame that Sprint has low balled HTC so much on their pricing that they probably negotiated returning defective units to the manufacture to be out of the question to ensure the margin for the EVO's didn't dip too low for HTC and get better pricing for them selfs.

Ahhh, the power of a coporation that doesn't screw their customers over because they deal in volume and know the importance of customer loyalty. Costco pops to mind, they have the clout to demand unquestioned return policies with EVERY manufacture that they sell products for and enough buying power to spend hundreds of millions with companies like Sony. Why would Sony even try to argue with Costco? They wont! They want the money Costco will spend with them and will bend over backwards to keep that type of sales relationship.

Sorry, I got a bit off topic there but I had to point to a company that treats their customers fair unlike what I've experience so far with Sprint.

First I was told by a Spint employee online that "charging ports are not covered under the OEM warranty". What? They're telling me that it's physical damage and it's my fault. Apparently I don't know how to plug a USB cable into a device correctly? I sell electronics for a living, my companies products have a 1 year warranty, if any product stopped turning on because of a power cord or damaged charging port there is no way we would try to tell the customer it was their fault. Replaced instantly!

Horrible customer service and I guess I'm not surprised seeing as how Sprint doesn't actually make any hardware they just slap their name on other peoples products.

So I went into the Sprint store that had a repair center today and they checked the phone out for me and verified it wouldn't charge. Then they told me that they can't fix it because I have water damage! I've never got my phone wet. This is crazy! So they showed me the water mark that might as well be on the out side of your phone and would show water damage even if you hand was the slightest bit sweaty. The water mark they pointed out to me is the one that is at the bottom of the phone under the battery cover. Exactly on the crack of the phone so even if you got one drop of water on your battery cover it bleeds and your screwed.

I informed them that I know there are more water damage stickers on my phone and they told me that it doesn't matter one is enough for them not to ever have to touch it or look at the issue closer. I didn't realize that I had a water mark on the battery that is in perfect condition while I was at the store and upon closer inspection online there is a 3rd water damage indicator located even closer to the faulty USB port. You can find it's location if you take the battery out and remove the red plastic back cover off. Surely if there was really water damage to my phone it would have to get deeper into the phone and would also trigger this 3rd indicator or the battery indicator. My battery sticker is in perfect shape as I'm sure the 3rd one is as well. They wouldn't even open the phone up to check. As far as I know they didn't even look at the battery indicator.

When looking around at pictures of other EVO's online they tend to have a pink or almost all white color to their water damage sticker after being triggered. Mine is deep red, you can see the cross hatch pattern has bled a little bit. It seems to me that the more water that comes in contact with the sticker the more the red stripes fade. My sticker is still deep red just a little bit lighter in color then the red plastic inside the phone and you can still see the stripe pattern.

My assumption is that the lighter the color of the sticker the more water, moisture, or condensation it was exposed to hence why mine is still a really dark pink or light red.

So I guess the real issue I figured out on why it looks like 1 out of 3 of my stickers is slightly water damaged is because I have drum roll please... a full body Invisible Shield. When I first got my phone I wanted to protect it like I did my G1. They are great cases! No extra bulk and prevents scratching. Well if you haven't installed window tint or one of these clear protective films before you wouldn't know that to apply the film or sticker you have to spay the sticky side with water to lubricate it enough to get it into the exact correct spot on your device. You then use a supplied mini squeegie and push out the water and air bubbles until you have a nice smooth surface and a protector that is ultra stuck on. Which is a guess where my problems began. I know I took the battery cover off of the device when applying the protective film but maybe there was a small drop or smear of water on the inside of the battery cover when I put it back on... I guess I should of been more aware of the security stickers as they are not a new concept to me. I just would not of thought that some how applying a protective film to my device would screw me over in the long run and basically void my OEM warranty. Good thing I bought the extended warranty through Sprint or else I would have no options except to have to buy another phone for $450 to live out my remaining 19 month contract!

My point is the USB port is broken and you can see it's cracked and missing. This has nothing to do with water damage. There are 0 other flaws with my phone except for the other OEM defect, the peeling screen in the lower left corner. I take care of my electronics, I build computers, I fix PS3's and XBoxes. But good luck getting some actual customer service from the Sprint reps seeing as they don't care and don't take into account the condition of the phone in to account to possibly make an exception to their policy which CAN ALWAYS happen.

I'm disgusted!