I am sometimes guilty of dropping or too rough handling my mobile phone and robust as they are, there is such a thing as once too often. So it was yesterday, my two and half year old Samsung A50 gave up the ghost and refused to be rebooted. Thanks to youtube techies, I tried some remarkable techniques, including tapping and slapping and massaging front and back. There was even a stint in the freezer for thirty minutes. Alas, despite repeated attempts over many hours, the black screen remained.

Its a shame really because its the best phone I have ever owned and I would gladly have ridden into the sunset with it. Now it is among the fallen in a drawer full of inferior predecessors. Not having enough money to buy its actual replacement (A53), I bought a discounted budget phone, the Google Pixel 6a. Only time will tell if it can live up to the last to go. But I must really begin treating the phone more kindly and with greater care.