Expert's Expert: How to get one last call out of your dying cellphone battery

I always like these little "tricks of the trade"; this one's from Sam Schechner's feature in the Wall Street Journal titled, oddly enough, "Tricks of the Trade."

He chatted with Motorola Corporate Vice President Rob Shaddock about insider battery knowledge and came away with some useful information.

Here it is:

• When your battery is dying, go to a high place like a hilltop or a building's upper terrace – phones use much less energy when they have a strong signal.

• When your battery is low, turn off extra features like Bluetooth.

• Try not to touch the keys unnecessarily – this activates the screen's power-hungry backlight (of course, if you've already turned off the backlight feature, you're ahead of the game).

• Never turn off the phone to rest the battery – powering it back up uses up more energy than letting it sit in standby in a strong signal area (shades of not turning off the lights when you leave a room... some things never change, huh?)

• Make a quick voice phone call rather than sending a long text message – typing drains a battery quickly.

• Warm the battery to get out the last bit of juice – put it under a desk lamp for a few minutes if it dies. Turn it back on, and you may be able to get one last quick call before it's permanently