Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK?

Posted by: Roger

Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 05:16

I'm looking for replacement battery packs for my Asus eee PC 1001PX (I want to get the 9-cell pack) and for my Samsung Q45 (replace the existing, dead, one).

The websites I've found so far look a little bit, well, Del Boy.

Any recommendations?
Posted by: mlord

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 16:07

Every last replacement Lithium-whatever battery I have ever purchased for notebooks and cameras, has died a premature death.

I've never purchased an original-brand replacement battery, though.

Cheers
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 16:15

Have you checked Amazon? I recently looked into replacing the battery on my MSI Wind U100, and they had a 9-cell replacement for my 6-cell battery (which is losing capacity) for only around $40. I'm pretty sure that's first-party, too.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 17:40

Originally Posted By: Dignan
Have you checked Amazon?


Yeah. They don't seem to be first-party, and there's a jump from £40 to £100 for 6-cell to 9-cell, which seems a bit steep.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 17:40

Originally Posted By: mlord
Every last replacement Lithium-whatever battery I have ever purchased for notebooks and cameras, has died a premature death.


So: don't bother?
Posted by: Shonky

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 05/12/2011 21:05

Buy genuine then? I've certainly found that with mobile phone batteries genuine is better not just in life but capacity (when comparing claimed mAh values).
Posted by: andy

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 06/12/2011 06:49

My experience matches that, the various no-name ones I bought for my Canon DSLR were hopeless. Went back to Canon branded ones.

Whenever I've bought Dell branded laptop batteries, they have always worked as well as the originals (I've never tried buying third party ones).
Posted by: mlord

Re: Replacement Laptop Batteries in the UK? - 06/12/2011 10:38

Originally Posted By: Roger
So: don't bother?

Dunno. For camera batteries, I still go for third-party clones, since one can usually find them for prices like "two for $10", instead of the "one for $100" for a genuine Canon BP-511A.

And the clones work spectacularly well for about two years, typically, then suddenly die. With more than one on hand as a backup, that's not normally an issue.

But now I've had the clones die on two successive trips to the EU, leaving me with just the Canon original each time. That's okay (still had one good Canon battery), but I think I need to stagger the clone purchases by a year, so that they don't all die during exactly the same week. smile

For notebook batteries, the picture is less clear. The clones have all been terrible: the firmware reports way less capacity than the sticker on the outside, and they generally die within a year.

Since the price ratio is more like 1:3 rather than 1:20 (camera batteries), I'm not sure what the least bad strategy would be.