Earlier this year, I moved to New England from New York. (I actually voted for Hawaii, but the hubby tempted me here with lobster. I couldn’t resist.) So now I’m bracing myself for my first New England winter. I think I’m all set: Long johns, snow boots, wooly scarves and no less than 6 different cold-weather hats and gloves. So I feel pretty protected and ready to battle the season.

One thing I didn’t think about was the effect the weather could have on my devices. So when Popular Mechanics conducted some cold-temperature phone testing, it grabbed my attention.

It’s known that cold temperatures can freeze LCDs and slow the chemical reactions necessary for li-ion batteries to hold their charge. But Popular Science wanted to see the full extent that cold weather could damage standard cellular handsets — like those freebies often given away by carriers for new contracts. So the magazine headed to Environ Laboratories — a Minneapolis-based an environmental testing facility used by the defense, aerospace and technology industries.

There, a “torture”-test was conducted on six feature phones, which were placed in a temp-controlled chamber (with a lowest possible setting of -100 F). The instructions were to keep dialing down the degrees until all the phones stopped working.

Turns out, the dial didn’t have to go all the way for malfunctions to surface. Here’s what they found:

10 F : A little screen dimming
-10 F: Some battery problems
-20 F: A few phone shutdowns
-30 F: Major battery and LCD issues
-40 to -55 F: All phones shut down

Okay, fate willing, I’ll never hit the bottom temps of some of these conditions, but there could be some screen dimming, battery problems and even some shutdowns, as visible in the upper range of the tests. And if travel to sub-zero climates, like Alaska or the Arctic, is ever necessary, it seems that a rugged, military-grade phone might be in order.

Fascinating stuff. But the team wasn’t content to leave things here. It went so far as to dunk a Moto Krzr into liquid nitrogen (-314.7 F). The handset’s audio and video astonishingly kept functioning up until the entire phone itself shut down. (If you’re curious, click below to watch the video, taken from the Krzr as it’s being dipped in.)

Liquid Nitrogen Cell Phone Dunk (click the link to see the vid)

The most interesting thing is that none of this caused any permanent damage — not even for the Krzr, which survived multiple dips in the nitrogen bath. All the handsets functioned properly again once brought back to room temps. As for the Motorola phone, it took a total of four dunks in the bath and a hard slamdunk to the floor to trash it.

So what’s the takeaway from all this? If you’ve ever found yourself out in the cold for awhile with a light windbreaker or thin denim jacket (and who hasn’t at one time or another?), don’t be surprised if your phone acts up. But don’t fret — once you warm yourself and your phone up, you both should be fine.

Via: Mobile Content Today, Popular Mechanics