HOW TO REFURBISH ERICSSON T28s
Ericsson T28 back on the map
Ericsson T28 was the lightest and slimmest mobile phone at the time of its released (1999). At one point, it was the best selling mobile phone in America and expensive to buy in europe. Up until early year 2011, this sleek and compact Ericsson T28 mobile phones had been forgotten and buried. I personally haven't actually owned an Ericsson T28 before then but have always admired it from afar as it was very expensive to buy in United Kingdom when released back in 1999.
In February 2011, I came across a used Ericsson T28s selling in an auction on eBay listed as not working at a starting price of .99p. Due to my curiosity of owning one of these phones, I bid and won the auction at the strating price as I was the only bidder and probably the only person that showed interest. I received my first Ericsson T28s in February 2011 at a landing cost of £5.80. The phone arrived in a clean good condition but the battery looked damaged and thought it may be worth purchasing a new battery for the phone since it was an expensive phone when it was released. As it is almost impossible to find a working Original Ericsson T28 battery to buy, I purchased a new replacement battery for this phone on ebay for £6 and I get to power up the phone which unfortunately powered up to a damaged screen.
The fact that I have laid my hands on one of these phones, I am now more eager in owing a working Ericsson T28s but, as this phone
was made over two decades ago, parts will be almost impossible to find so I went in a hunt for another Ericsson T28s hoping to find one with a working screen. After couple of months searching, I found another Ericsson T28s listed on eBay as not working at a starting price of .99p which I bid on and being the only person interested, again I won this also at a similar landing cost.
Fortunately, when this phone arrived, it also had a damaged battery but powered up using the copy battery I had already purchased and everything else worked as it should without the need for a repair "My Luck" so I now own a working Ericsson T28s but in poor housing condition.
However, realising the first Ericsson T28s I purchased had a better housing condition, I decided it would be nice to swap the housing over and I visited couple of repair centres to see if they could assist in doing this swap over safely as I couldn't even get to pull the antenna out. All the repair centres refused to touch these phones as they all said they are too old to waste their time on.
After several frustrating moments, I decided to do it myself and first did a search on how to dismantle mobile phones which I came across a site that is showing how to dismantle another mobile phone but not the Ericsson T28. I used the knowledge from that site and eventually was able to open up my Ericsson T28 starting from the one that had a damaged screen should in case I damaged it. I manage to complete the swap over of the housing successfully and now owned a clean refurbished Ericsson T28s which did really made me proud of my effort.
I got motivated by the result and decided to buy more Ericsson T28s to refurbish and re-sell via eBay as "Seller Refurbished". I started to sell these phones back in Novemebr 2011 for £40 to £60 in working condition and the phones were selling very fast mainly to buyers from Russia. I also uploaded a youtube video of me using this phone to create more awareness and people starting to ask where to get one of these phones and obviously I directed them to my ebay listing.
After selling nearly 50 of these refurbished units, the phone became popular again amongst people that had used this phone in the past and due to my sales, I got contacted by an Ericsson dealer that noticed I was the only seller selling this phone in working condition in UK as a refurbished units and was offered a stock of these phones from South Africa in new condition to buy and re-sell. I purchased some of this stock as I could not take the chance of buying the whole stock offered should in the case they stop selling and not able to sell them all.
I started selling these phones in new condition for around £70 inclusive of p&p and they were selling averagely 2-3 items a day. Also since I did not take the whole stock, the dealer offered the rest of the stock to other eBay seller using my sales as a reference of guantee to sell which makes the phone even more popular.
It's been a pleasure bringing this phone back in the frame of a rare retro handsets and have been really proud of the sales that I had made from my curiosity of just to own one of these piece of Ericsson Technology. I'm sharing this knowledge and hoping you can share yours with me regarding this rare vintage Ericsson T28s mobile phone.
There are 1000's of these phones out there that had stopped to work and Ericsson are no more in existence, so therefore the parts are no where to be found. I had discovered what was causing these phones to die after thorough investigation and now in a process of having the parts made to solve these issues. Keep your eye on this page and will keep you posted of any progress made.
Thank you for reading.