Modder gives DROID RAZR a battery transplant for a home-made RAZR MAXX

There’s more than a few early adopters of the Motorola DROID RAZR who felt miffed after Verizon unveiled the DROID RAZR MAXX at CES, just a couple of months after the original was released. As noted in our review, the hardware is staggeringly similar and the software is actually identical – literally the only difference is a slightly extended body to allow more room for the massive 3300mAh battery. So one XDA developer member did what those fellows do best ,and took apart both a DROID RAZR and the RAZR MAXX, swapped the batteries and the back half of the housing, and turned them on.

It worked. It looks like there’s no reason that the original RAZR can’t accept the expanded battery from the MAXX, if the person doing the swapping has the time, skill and inclination. Those qualifiers aren’t mere formalities: the DROID RAZR is built using some incredibly tough materials and isn’t intended to be opened like a standard smartphone – some very non-traditional methods have been employed thus far. And of course, you need a spare DROID RAZR MAXX that for some reason you’re ready to disembowel, not to mention voiding the warranty on your original phone. Maybe you picked up a unit with a broken screen second-hand. Otherwise, why not just swap the Micro-SIM and be done with it?

The DROID RAZR MAXX’s extended battery makes it an awfully compelling smartphone, even with the drawbacks of Gingerbread and a locked bootloader. In our torturous three-day test, the MAXX managed to make it through a Las Vegas business trip on a single charge (albeit with some tricks used to conserve power). We heartily recommend it over the original DROID RAZR due to the small increase in size and weight relative to performance. There’s no word on whether this bit of technological surgery will work between a US-formatted DROID RAZR MAXX and an international Motorola RAZR, but there’s no reason that a third party couldn’t make replacement batteries and casings for the do-it-yourself types.

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[via TechCrunch]