Iron Man contest winner announced!
After weeks of hand-wringing, we've finally settled on a winner of our contest for LG's uber-limited $1,500 Iron Man edition Shine! We asked you to send in pictures of the busted-up pieces of garbage you call "phones," and holy cow, did we get some doozies.
Without further adieu, our winner, Mark H., comes to us from Novato, California. Here's his story:
"I need a new phone as you can see. I have had this Nokia phone since 2001. I'm in the military service and my friends make fun of my old phone and now they're really on me since my phone was run over by a car and I use electrical tape to keep the faceplate together. I don't get paid enough by the service to buy a nice new phone."
Congratulations, Mark! Even if this relic were in perfect condition, it'd still be time for an upgrade. Let's try to keep this one a little less scuffed, because that solid gold battery cover definitely does not live up to the "Iron Man" name. Follow the break for some honorable mentions -- you guys made it really hard to choose!
"What started as a fun day on the go-kart track ended up in utter despair. After parking my kart my friend ran up to me with what sort of resembled my cell phone, albeit Terminator-esque. Apparently it fell out of its holster as I was rounding the last corner and was run over by at least two others behind me. I learned to never ever put anything on my belt ever again."
"This thing is a little over a year old. I dropped it recently-hence the screen hanging on by the cord (and the wires are exposed!) The volume doesn't work that well and the battery is pitiful. Maybe I can't be trusted with a $1500 phone though...I would be more than happy to have it though."
"One late night, my LG met it match in the size of a 10.5 (phone was left open on some clothes and crunch). It started small with the display and ringer not working then the ear piece failed as the cover did not shut very well. In a panic for my phone, I grabbed the handset from the car, plugged it in and it worked perfectly. Eventually the phone lost it's flip entirely but still worked."
"Clearly missing is the flip phone's flippin' cover with only tell tale signs of wires once connected! The phone recently was 'auto converted' to just a PDA when my darling daughter lost control of her soccer ball and impaled it into my Treo whilst I was still talking on it, cleanly removing the lid; and thusly the speaker. Sure, I could still MAKE calls to people... but I could not HEAR THEM. Still, i needed my PDA because of all the data used DAILY. But also needed BI-directional Phone. Most 'phones' can NOT accept all these numbers, soooooooo, I've had to carry around both this 'handicapped' PDA and a used Motorola Razor."
"When I was in Moscow in 2005, I burned the battery with a wrong charger and had it fixed for $50 even though a new phone could have cost me less. The phone finally broke a month ago while I was pulling an all-nighter at Starbucks. The screen was hanging by its connector cable and I had to use duct tape to get my old numbers. I bought a replacement from eBay, but it didn't work – it was dead on arrival. So, now I am using my mother's phone and she is back to her ancient Nokia."
