How to charge your Motorola RAZR via USB and use it as a modem

Have you ever had the need to charge your Motorola RAZR but did not have access to a charger? It happens to me all the time. I have only one charger and I leave it at home. Often while I’m at work, my RAZR lets out its distinctive cry to warn me it wants to be fed. Well, know that it is possible to charge it by connecting it to a computer via the USB port. All you need is a mini-USB cable handy, such as those used by many MP3 players and digital cameras.

Charge your Motorola RAZR via USB

The RAZR charges via its mini-USB port. However, it will not charge if you simply connect it to a computer. You’ll need to install special drivers to achieve this. Fortunately, Motorola has made available these drivers for members of the MOTODEV (Motorola developer community), and anyone can join in, create an account and download the RAZR drivers for their Motorola phone. Note that these RAZR drivers are only available for Windows based PC. Once you have installed the drivers, your Motorola RAZR should begin charging up as soon as you connect it to a computer.

Use your RAZR as a modem

As a bonus, these drivers allow you to use your Motorola RAZR as a modem. That means if you have access to a dial-up internet connection, your RAZR can allow you to connect your laptop to the internet from virtually anywhere. Once you have installed the drivers, the Motorola modem should be available to use in Windows just like any other modem.

If you don’t feel like creating an account with MOTODEV and messing around with drivers, you could always buy a spare charger… They seem to be selling chargers for the RAZR pretty cheap nowadays.

Something made me realize yesterday that my Motorola RAZR V3c is much more than a simple cellular phone. I had a battery problem that I solved by rebooting the RAZR.

As I left for work yesterday morning, I disconnected my cell phone from the charger and made sure it was fully charged. The LCD screen read Charge complete, meaning I was good to go. I received very few calls during that day and didn’t use any other features of the phone. I had a total of 10 minutes of talking time, I checked my logs. Lo and behold, at 4 ‘o clock in the afternoon the battery was already half drained.

I decided to let the battery drain completely before putting it on the charger again. My phone is only a few months old and the battery lasted much much longer than this in the past few weeks. At 3 ‘o clock in the morning, I was woken up by the familiar sound the RAZR V3c does when it is low on battery. The battery drained much faster than I expected, and I started to wonder what had changed in the previous days.

I had been trying a few Java games on the V3c in the past few days. My theory is that either the Java machine on the phone or the games themselves would remain active in memory, draining battery power as their processes used more CPU.

To test my theory, I simply turned off my RAZR and turned it back on, effectively rebooting the cellular phone. I then put the phone back on the charger, and picked it up the following morning fully charged. At the end of the day, the phone still had its complete charge!

Tip: Do a reboot of your cell phone from time to time.

Cell phones are becoming much more like computers. They run an exploitation system and they can run software and virtual machines like Java. If your cell phone responds slowly or if your battery drains too fast, you could have a rogue process draining your phone’s CPU. Simply turn the phone off and turn it back on.

I used to never turn off my cell phone, keeping it charged as it needed it. I guess a weekly ‘reboot’ will not hurt! Have you had a similar experience? Share it!

PCWorld’s “Ring in the cellular battery savings” article is giving you advices on how to get through the day with one charge of your cell phone battery. Here’s a summary of the tips:

1. Use airplane mode - Many phones offer “airplane mode” in which your cell phone is unable to make or receive calls, but still offers PDA functionality. Using this mode when you don’t expect calls will save power on your battery, since the internal radio takes up a lot of juice
2. Use the “keypad lock” feature - To avoid accidentaly dialing or turning on your phone’s backlight while you’re traveling, lock down the keypad.
3. Beware of the extras - Bluetooth, games, music… they all drain your battery faster.
4. Cellboost - Cellboost is a disposable capsule that will recharge your cell phone on the go, giving you about 1 extra hour of talk-time.
5. ElectriLite - ElectriLite is a “manual” charger. Put your muscles into use as your charge your phone by cranking the handle of the flashlight/cell phone charger hybrid. 3 minutes of cranking gets you about 8 minutes of talk time.

More tips are available at Four tips of prolonging the life of your cell phone battery

The Economic Times has an interesting article on how to increase your cell phone battery life. Here’s a summary:

1. Don’t drop your cell phone and handle it with care. In order to pack the maximum charge capacity within the least amount of weight and volume, the structure of batteries have become quite complex. Dropping or handling your cell phone roughly could damage your battery.
2. Beware of the heat and avoid direct sunlight. Batteries are designed to work within certain temperature range. Overheating the batteries will most certainly cause permanent damage. Don’t leave your cell phone on the dashboard of your car, and don’t store it under direct sunlight.
3. Don’t leave your battery on the charger. Although most phones have overcharge protection, it is useless to leave your phone on the charger for more than the specified time. The battery can’t hold more charge than it is designed for. Furthermore, most batteries have a fixed life span of 400-600 cycles of charging. Once your cell phone is done charging, the battery discharges through the device. The charging could start again if the battery drops too low. However, most recent phones will draw power directly from the charger when they are connected, so this tip might not be applicable for every cell phone.
4. Don’t completely discharge the battery before recharging. Unless you’re still using batteries with a memory effect (ie. nickel-cadium batteries), it is better the recharge the phone once the battery is at 5-10% of the total charge. Lithium-ion batteries work better that way.

These tips will work for most cell phones, but it is always a good idea to follow your user’s manual guidelines concerning charging and cellular phone handling.