[PaulM]

So, while I was at work last night, my youngin thought that it would be a great idea to toss the wife's 9800 in the bathtub. It was submerged for approx. 3 seconds, the battery was pulled immediately afterwards and then she stuck the phone in a box of rice to try and wick the water out of it.
When I got home, I took the phone apart and stuck it back in the rice overnight.

I powered the phone up this morning and it boots up fine, but the upper 2/3's of the touch screen are now unresponsive. Interesting part is that with the exception of the touch screen the phone is functional. It will make/recieve calls and send texts/e-mails, etc.. Taking this into consideration, I'm thinking about ordering a new digitizer (fancy name for the touch screen above the LCD.) and seeing if it will fix it.

I could replace the phone with my handset protection plan with AT&T, but there is a $199 deductible! I can find a replacement on Ebay for less.

I know that this is typically catastrophic for a phone, so my question is this; should I even bother trying to replace the digitizer and just replace the phone, or should it be salvageable considering that the phone powers up and functions somewhat normally?

Thanks for any input.

[jsconyers]

Personally, I think you didn't wait long enough.

I say it's not worth trying to repair. I've read where people thought they saved their phone only to find that issues appear a little while down the road.

[Dubdub]

Need to leave it to dry int he rice for 4-5 days at least before powering on. we have a FAQ article that discussing what to do if your device gets wet.

And I agree with what jsconyers said above, usually more problems pop up as time goes by. Probably cheaper and less problems if you just replace it now.

[tsac]

Replace the kid or blackberry?

[Dubdub]

Both