question Replacement Thinkpad battery

[Stereodude]

What have you guy done about replacement batteries for laptops? Specifically for a Thinkpad. The system in question is a T410. It's complaining about the battery and the life is only about half of what it used to be. I plan to go with a 6 cell battery. Obviously I want a new battery. Are the 3rd party ones any good for the small price savings? Regardless, how do you know you're getting a fresh battery and not one that has sat around for years?

 

[ddrueding]

I order direct from Lenovo, but I would be worried about how long their inventory has been sitting around for a laptop of that vintage. I'd probably turn to BatteriesPlus.

 

[Stereodude]

I order direct from Lenovo, but I would be worried about how long their inventory has been sitting around for a laptop of that vintage. I'd probably turn to BatteriesPlus.

They used the same battery for the T420 and a pile of other machines too, so that might not be a big concern.

 

[Mercutio]

Since an awful lot of people don't want to buy a $100 battery for a three year old laptop, I've experimented with non-OEM replacement batteries for Lenovos many times over the years and been burned probably 66% of the time. I can also say that efforts to buy a "good" clone battery by dealing with the same vendor haven't been successful. New OEM batteries aren't cheap but that beats the crap out of buying a $40 battery that only charges 10 times and then dies, or a new battery with roughly the same capacity as the four year old one it's replacing. I just elected to buy a battery for my T420 rather than a whole new laptop myself. I bought it from Lenovo since Amazon/Ebay et al. sellers will just straight up lie about whether or not they're selling new and/or OEM batteries.

Conversely, all batteries for all Dell laptops are uniformly shit that will last something less than 15 months and all laptop batteries that fit in one model, whether Dell OEM or Shen Zouhong Dragon Consul of Heaven brand seem to have uniformly the same characteristics.

This is a great mystery of laptop batteries.

 

[Stereodude]

Since an awful lot of people don't want to buy a $100 battery for a three year old laptop, I've experimented with non-OEM replacement batteries for Lenovos many times over the years and been burned probably 66% of the time. I can also say that efforts to buy a "good" clone battery by dealing with the same vendor haven't been successful. New OEM batteries aren't cheap but that beats the crap out of buying a $40 battery that only charges 10 times and then dies, or a new battery with roughly the same capacity as the four year old one it's replacing. I just elected to buy a battery for my T420 rather than a whole new laptop myself. I bought it from Lenovo since Amazon/Ebay et al. sellers will just straight up lie about whether or not they're selling new and/or OEM batteries.

What's your take on the people selling new Lenovo batteries on ebay? They're between $40 and $45. They say they're Genuine, but they all use the same picture with a date code from 3 years ago. If they send a knock off that should be a quick ebay/paypal claim. I was thinking to ask a few of them for the date code of what they're selling.

FWIW, I couldn't even find the 6 cell battery on Lenovo's site, though I didn't look super hard.

 

[Mercutio]

I think those people are probably lying. I've also seen fake batteries with markings close enough to OEM that I probably wouldn't be able to tell if I didn't have several examples of the real thing at hand.

I went back and looked and the last good clone I got came from this Amazon seller, but that's not to say it's the battery they would send you or that their 6 cell version performs the same as the 9 cell.

 

[LunarMist]

I've had nothing but bad experiences with third-party batteries as well. At least the OEM battery should have a year warranty.

 

[Stereodude]

I ended up ordering a new Lenovo 6-cell battery on eBay for $40 shipped. The backstory on the batteries seems believable. The seller says they're from July 2014, but the date code in the picture is the end of 2013. I can't quite tell if it's 10, 11, or 12. It will be interesting to see what shows up and how well it works. This seemed like the best low cost option since buying a brand new one from Lenovo at full price is a non-starter.

There's nothing quite like giving a Christmas gift of semi-questionable origin.

 

[Stereodude]

So, the battery has a 12/2013 date code on the sticker and didn't show any signs of physical wear, but it wasn't in a sealed package. I had my coworker plug the battery in his T420 yesterday to check it out. The information the battery spit out via SM Bus says it was made 12/5/2013. It had 0 charge cycles on it. The first charge/usage was 12/2014 (yesterday). It was at 0% charge when I started. It took quite a few hours to charge to 100%, but it charged up without incident. They best I can tell cells-r-us-nc is selling genuine never been used Lenovo 6 cell batteries at a great price!

 

[Tannin]

There are three sorts of battery:

1: Good expensive ones with brand-name badges (Lenovo, HP, etc.

2: Moderately priced ones which come out of the same factory, off the same production line, using the same materials or better. The likes of HP and Lenovo don't make batteries, they buy them in from specialist battery manufacturers. You can but the same batteries or better, unbranded .... but they are hard to find.

3: Very cheap Chinese rubbish off Flea-bay.

The trick is finding type (2). You need to track down a reputable seller and be prepared to pay a sensible price. (Think around half to two-thirds of the branded price. Once you have found a decent, reliable vendor, stick to them!