Good materials gone bad or built in obsolescence?

As someone who goes through around 10-20 new phones a year, I’ve amassed a considerable collection of handsets. To me, this is my museum, to others it is often considered signs of hoarding, but I’ll leave that to an upcoming video for your to decide. Today I’d like to use my blog to rant about the built in obsolescence in some old phones. The phone you see above is a droid. An old droid. Thanks to our need to keep upgrading, there are probably very few of these phones still out there being used as a daily driver.

Sadly, even if someone really did want to use this phone, chances are they won’t actually be able to. This particular droid was released with a type of rubber coating designed to give it a little bit of grip, and those of you with a new generation all-glass phone will understand the thought process behind this. Sadly, the materials used were not selected with longevity in mind. A mere years after release, the back of the phone is actually sticky enough to pick it up just by touching it, and yes, that really does feel as gross as it sounds.

The solution is thankfully not too complex – a little isopropyl alcohol and a rag will rub the old coating right off and should leave the rest of the materials alone. As with everything else in the world, there are even YouTube videos dedicated to my problem, which gives me a bit of relief knowing I’m not alone in the world…