How to Use a Droid to Connect a Laptop to the Internet

Tethering

1. Connect the Charge's USB cable to a free USB port on your computer and to the USB port on the left side of your phone.

2. Press the 'Home' button on your Droid Charge. The 'Home' button has the picture of a house on it.

3. Press the 'Menu' button, which is the button on the far left below the display.

4. Tap 'Settings,' then 'Wireless & network,' then 'Tethering,' then 'USB Tethering.' When you tap the 'USB Tethering' option, a check will appear in the box beside it, and your laptop will be online in just a moment or two. Tap that option again to turn off the tethering feature.

Hotspot

5. Press the 'Home' button on your Droid Charge. The 'Home' button has the picture of a house on it.

6. Press the 'Menu' button, which is the button on the far left below the display.

7. Tap 'Settings,' then 'Wireless & network,' then 'Mobile Hotspot,' then 'Network settings,' then 'Configure.'

8. Select either 'Automatic' or 'Manual' to set up your hotspot. If you choose 'Automatic,' your device will broadcast a secure network with the password being the phone's number with no dashes, spaces or parentheses. If you choose 'Manual,' you'll then need to type in a name for the hotspot, enable or disable 'broadcast SSID' (enabling it is fine if you use WPA2 security), choose a security type (ideally WPA2), and type in a password.

9. Press the 'Home' button again when you've finished the automatic or manual setup.

10. Press the 'Applications' button, which is near the bottom of the screen and is made up of four squares. This brings up the list of the apps on your phone.

11. Tap 'Mobile Hotspot,' and then tap 'Continue' after you finish reading the information your phone displays about the hotspot feature.

12. Tap 'Turn on Mobile Hotspot' to enable the hotspot.

13. Click on your laptop's network icon in the bottom-right notification area. Hover your mouse over each icon in that area if you're not sure which one is the network icon; the name of each icon will appear.

14. Select your Charge's hotspot from the available list and click connect; then type in the password when Windows prompts you. In just a moment, your laptop will be online.