Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Just a quick science experiment to bring up:
One of my customers asked me to order him extra batteries for his and his main salesman's Lenovo T400 notebooks. The battery used in that model is the same as the one used in my widescreen T61 and in newer T410 and T510 models that several other members have.
After informing him that a new nine cell battery from Lenovo is $150, he asked me if I could get them cheaper anyplace else, so I ordered a pair of $60 Knock-offs from Ebay, something I've never done for a Lenovo notebook. I specifically bought more expensive models that offered a three year warranty; the same battery can be had for as little as $35 otherwise.
According to Lenovo's battery monitor, the knock offs are not official Lenovo batteries, something that it complains about every time the notebook wakes up from sleep and randomly during normal operation.
The knock offs use Sanyo cells, just like my current OEM battery, but the watt-hour rating is 81.something for each of them and only 76.something for the OEM battery (mine is two year old, which may account for the discrepancy). Nonetheless, the knock offs both appear to be good for only about 2:45 of normal operation, versus about 3:15 for my well used OEM battery.
Also of note: I ordered the batteries from different Ebay sellers on different days and paid different prices for them, but the batteries I received appear to be identical. One has a serial number of 45 and the other one's serial number is 59, which suggests that they came from the same production run from wherever the hell they came from. Both packages shipped out of Singapore.
Now it may very well be that the Lenovo battery gauge reset behaves differently or reports different information for non-OEM batteries, but I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea that the knock-offs appear to have more power storage yet discharge more quickly.
One of my customers asked me to order him extra batteries for his and his main salesman's Lenovo T400 notebooks. The battery used in that model is the same as the one used in my widescreen T61 and in newer T410 and T510 models that several other members have.
After informing him that a new nine cell battery from Lenovo is $150, he asked me if I could get them cheaper anyplace else, so I ordered a pair of $60 Knock-offs from Ebay, something I've never done for a Lenovo notebook. I specifically bought more expensive models that offered a three year warranty; the same battery can be had for as little as $35 otherwise.
According to Lenovo's battery monitor, the knock offs are not official Lenovo batteries, something that it complains about every time the notebook wakes up from sleep and randomly during normal operation.
The knock offs use Sanyo cells, just like my current OEM battery, but the watt-hour rating is 81.something for each of them and only 76.something for the OEM battery (mine is two year old, which may account for the discrepancy). Nonetheless, the knock offs both appear to be good for only about 2:45 of normal operation, versus about 3:15 for my well used OEM battery.
Also of note: I ordered the batteries from different Ebay sellers on different days and paid different prices for them, but the batteries I received appear to be identical. One has a serial number of 45 and the other one's serial number is 59, which suggests that they came from the same production run from wherever the hell they came from. Both packages shipped out of Singapore.
Now it may very well be that the Lenovo battery gauge reset behaves differently or reports different information for non-OEM batteries, but I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea that the knock-offs appear to have more power storage yet discharge more quickly.
Japanese cells, my ass.
