Advice on Moisture

[efdisaster]

I know that the Droid does not like moisture. I've read about various users' experiences with crazy spastic screens and non-responsive buttons. I have these same problems... a lot. I don't know if my fingers are particularly greasy, or I sweat too much, or I'm the only person trying to use the phone in a job that puts me outside in the humid Chicagoland summer for most of my days... but my phone is nearly unusable most of the day. Once I'm inside and I give it some time to recover and wipe down the screen (and then wipe it down some more after I get my slimy, sweaty fingers all over it... give my body some time to recover... and try again) it works fine.

I bought the phone on launch day... replaced it twice through Verizon for rebooting issues once and teakettle-noise-in-the-background-of-calls once. I think it should still be covered under some sort of warranty, though probably not the super simple no-questions-asked Verizon replacements that I did those first couple months.

My feeling, though, is that this is a common enough problem that I wouldn't benefit from a replacement phone. Is there a screen protector (besides sealing my entire phone in a ziploc bag, which I do on days I'm at the beach, and things work fairly well on those days... so, I'm not above doing that) that would help? I didn't have any issues in the winter and spring, so I think if I can figure out a way to deal with it for the rest of the summer, I'll be fine until I feel like upgrading.

 

[efdisaster]

I got the Steamy Window app... just to see exactly what was going on when the screen went crazy. I made the mistake of putting it on my far right homescreen, so it's almost impossible to get to it to open it, when the phone is in humid-mode. I'll think about moving it over to the main screen tomorrow... I also got a screenshot app, which I haven't tried out yet... hopefully tomorrow.

Let me explain what I'm seeing and maybe someone else has tried this and seen the same thing: If I manage to open the steamy window app when the phone is going crazy and then try to tap somewhere towards the middle or squiggle around in the middle, little to nothing happens, then suddenly there is some response, and then I see lines appear on the left and/or right edges. Sometimes it's just a little piece of the left edge, sometimes all of both edges. I think they go from top to bottom, but they might just go randomly up and down, which would explain the occasional dancing notification bar.

Again, this is only happening this summer, so I think it's a humidity thing... and it didn't happen for a couple days after my original post, as the humidity here in Chicagoland broke for a couple days... but I don't know if mine is particularly sensitive or doing things that other peoples' phones are not doing.