The Phone: North America: Latte Boom | Europe/Aisa: Smart V888
The Story: (brief as possible)

Last night my battery became very low, the phone defaulted to the phone's splash screen and would neither turn on or off, even when closed the splash screen remained. As I was not going to be home for a few hours I removed the battery to get it to turn off and avoid an LCD ghost of the bright splash screen.

When I got home I plugged the phone into the USB -> AC adapter, the splash screen flashed on and off but there was no sign of charging, I figured this may be normal for such a low battery since I had never let it get so low before and left it over night, this morning the splash screen was still flashing on and off and the phone wouldn't turn on with or without the cord attached.

I plugged the phone into my computer instead of the AC and it went into disk mode and I could access the files on the SD card but it still wouldn't charge or switch to on mode when unmounted the splash would just start blinking again.

This phone comes with a second battery so I grabbed it. It had never been used and should have had a 50% charge according to the documentation. However it continued to blink the splash screen and not ever turn on.

I contacted the company, in my case Latte Communications via email with the issue and what I had done to try and resolve it and was sent an RMA 3 hours later with no explanation of the problem or any steps to try and correct it first.

The RMA would be fine if it wasn't restricted to the US as i'm in Canada.

The "Latte Boom" documentation is no help and there is nothing but reviews online no experiences or troubleshooting. And the "Smart V888" documentation is all in Chinese.

Anyone have any ideas?

Summary of things tried:
- Different battery
- USB -> AC and USB -> USB (USB to USB puts the phone into disk mode and I can access files, but it wont charge the battery or start the phone)
- Removing battery with cable connected and replacing the battery after cable connected.
- All manner of button pushes
- Leaving the phone plugged in for over 8 hours
- Leaving the phone without the battery or cable for over 3 hours


I apologize for the long message, I work in technical support for a living, I am detail oriented when it comes to technology issues. I also spoke to someone who used to work for a cell phone company and he has never heard of removing the battery causing a phone to brick.. i'm at a loss.

Any help appreciated =)


See More: Help: Bricked phone...(latte/smart)