Tips - Getting the Most of your Omnia Cell Battery

Getting the Most of your Omnia Cell Battery

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING BATTERY

You can't run from the beep of impending doom. Anyone who's used a cell phone for any length of time has experienced the low-battery warning. And true to Murphy's Law, the battery death knell always seems to sound in the middle of a conversation. Faced with a dying battery, you'll (at best) have to rush to the nearest power source. At worst, losing battery power in midchat will drive you to throw your phone out the window with a maniacal scream.

Prevention is the best medicine, so make sure you charge your phone every night and before you hit the road. But there's also an emergency cure or two.

1. Carry an extra battery
If you spend a lot of time out and about during business trips, you may not have a way to recharge your phone during the day. Even a car charger or a five-hour battery might not be able to beat a day of walking conference calls, interviews from the park, or emergency meetings from the airport lounge. That's why it's a good idea for business travelers to pack an extra battery, especially for phones with a high-resolution, battery-draining color screen.

Also, if you don't mind adding a little extra bulk to your handset, you can purchase (from your wireless provider) an extended battery, which increases your phone's talk and standby time performance.

2. Limit your camera/video use
Your handset's camera or videocam features may be fun and perhaps even useful. But they're also a heavy drain on your battery. If you're away from a power source, be sure to limit your use of these features. Otherwise, you may be in store for an unwelcome surprise in the middle of a conversation. Gaming and Web browsing also burn through your battery.

3. Buy a battery booster
Sometimes there's just no way around getting caught with a dying battery, but you do have one emergency option: a battery booster--think of it as a spare tire for your phone. These products plug into the bottom of your phone and provide you with about an hour of talk time (or 60 hours of standby time). As with the antenna boosters, we haven't tested these products, so we can't guarantee they'll work.
Battery boosters such as this one from Compact Power Systems can keep you talking for an hour or so after your juice runs out.

A popular brand is Compact Power Systems' Cellboost. When your phone's low-battery warning goes off, you can connect the booster to your handset to continue your conversation while the battery is charging. If your battery is completely dead, Cellboost's "quick charge" promises that you'll be able to make a call in about two minutes. Cellboost ($7) is compatible with many popular handset models, including offerings from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sanyo.

Cellboost is a disposable charger with a finite energy supply, but there are other options available, including hand-crank and solor-powered models. There's also a product that uses AAA batteries. See them all in our quick guide to emergency chargers.

For a different approach, check out the $25 Sidewinder Portable Power Cell Phone Charger. It has a hand crank, which is supposed to deliver extra juice to your handset. According to the company, two minutes of winding gives you about six minutes of talk time. Although it requires much more work on your part than the other products, the Sidewinder won't run out of power, so it's designed to be reliable whenever you need a quick boost.