A funny thing happened this week: My wife’s Android phone stopped working — and after troubleshooting it and concluding there was no easy fix, I chuckled to myself and felt a strange sense of wonder.

Let me step back a bit and explain. The missus has a Nexus 5X (yup), and it’s generally served her well since she moved into it last fall. She’s much more of a “typical phone user” than I am (though an exceptional all-around person — hi, honey!), and the 5X proved to be the right mix of power and comfort for her needs.

That is, at least, until the damn thing suddenly decided to stop working. Midway through the day on Monday, her phone restarted itself without warning and then wouldn’t boot up past the point of showing the Google logo.

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