Foo - What's the best performing laptop battery?

What's the name of the longest lasting (from one charge) laptop battery?

When I say 'name', I mean maybe you know a brand name that stands out from all the rest. Sort of like the Ferrari of laptop batteries, if such a thing exists.

And how many hours would you expect to get out of it from one charge?

My laptop is an old 2003 Dell Inspiron 5100:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,997075,00.asp






http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3158/3105173826_d0f6088495_o.jpg

Hate to burst your bubble, but you're not going to have much luck finding a replacement battery that can hold more juice. Each laptop has it's own proprietary battery and the manufactures don't give you a whole lot of options. The best thing to do is to buy a second battery and just swap the two.

My company gave me a Lenova (ex-IBM) with a double capacity battery. It will last three or four hours which is by far the best I have ever seen.

Most laptops use individual 18650 lithium-ion cells. I've successfully repaired old battery-packs by unsoldering and replacing the old worn-out cells in many laptops. The one in my Dell Latitude had (8) 18650 1400mah cells. Replacing them with 2600mah cells gave me over double the battery-life since the old ones were on the verge of complete worthlessness.

The other thing that really helped was to remove the CD-ROM and put a 2nd battery-pack into that bay. I went from 2-hrs per charge to over 6-hrs continuous use with freshly rebuilt battery-packs. You can get 18650 batteries from numerous sources to rebuild your own packs:

Battery Junction (http://www.batteryjunction.com/tenergy-18650-tab-2600.html)
Battery Space (http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=4521)
Deal Extreme (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1283)

WARNING - Make SURE you get the same replacement cell types as your original battery. LiIon batteries have 50% more capacity per size/weight as previous Nimh batteries. HOWEVER, they are NOT interchangeable due to output-voltage differences and charging-circuit responses. Even IF you can mix & match number of cells in series/parallel to arrive at similar voltages, the voltage-response curve during charging is different. That's been the cause of those recalled exploding batteries. The manufacturers got lazy and used Nimh-charging algorithms and circuit-boards on LiIon batteries.

I remember a thinkpad that had a batt pack that was made to fit on the cd rom reader slot.

Sort of like the Ferrari of laptop batteries,Does that include being as ugly as the Enzo?

No idea, but your name is awesome.:thumb:

Most aftermarket batteries are designed closer to the OEM specs. If you want a little longer life, get a replacement battery that has a higher cell capacity (mWh).

If super duper extra-long battery capacity is a must, go external:

http://bixnet.net/images/Bat-BP170-Display.jpg
Linky: http://www.bixnet.com/suslloruntie.html

Probably cost more than the laptop is worth tho... On my last job they had a few that they loaned to executives for they long flights so they could work (aka watch movies) for hours during transit.

The 5100 has a 6600Mah battery - so see if you can find one that is more - or buy two generic ones for the price of a Dell one. (actually, looking at the prices - a generic is like $65 and a Dell one is $180, so three of them.)

I wonder if it's really dumb for me to be running the battery of my new work laptop down to zero right now. It tells me it has 3 min to go and shut me down already but I over-rode some warnings and restarted it (it has solid-state drive, not a hd so no head crash at least). I was reading something crazy at I think nytimes.com on battery mgmt, on the one hand they suggested periodically running a battery down to 0 so it's 'meter can recalibrate' I guess so it really knows how much life it can have. The article also suggested running laptops plugged in w/ battery removed. I'm sure they've changed in the last 15 yrs since this happened to me, but I did once fry a laptop by running it w/o the battery. The help desk people told me the machine needed the resistance of the battery to reduce the load on other internals. I have no idea what is the current state of that kind of technology though.

found that article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/technology/personaltech/01basics.html

(booted back up fine after draining though it gave me the option of booting in safe or some other modes since it (correctly) didn't think it had shut down right)

Many aftermarket batteries are refurbished in the way DannoXYZ described. They take the dead laptop battery pack and swap out the old cells with new cells.

And if you want the Ferrari of laptop batteries, then just take the battery from a Ferrari laptop (http://www.engadget.com/2004/03/05/acers-ferrari-laptop/).

Your best bet is to buy the most cell batteries you can find, enable hibernation, and just swap battery packs.

I wonder if it's really dumb for me to be running the battery of my new work laptop down to zero right now. It tells me it has 3 min to go and shut me down already but I over-rode some warnings and restarted it (it has solid-state drive, not a hd so no head crash at least). I was reading something crazy at I think nytimes.com on battery mgmt, on the one hand they suggested periodically running a battery down to 0 so it's 'meter can recalibrate' I guess so it really knows how much life it can have. The article also suggested running laptops plugged in w/ battery removed. I'm sure they've changed in the last 15 yrs since this happened to me, but I did once fry a laptop by running it w/o the battery. The help desk people told me the machine needed the resistance of the battery to reduce the load on other internals. I have no idea what is the current state of that kind of technology though.

My Mac Book Pro will actually run slower if the battery is removed and run only with
the power cord attached. Evidently the ac power system cannot meet the high level
of power that is occasionally required so they throttle the speed.

Jerry

There might be a Batteries Plus shop near you that can perhaps do this, not sure though.

Is there anyone (you?) that can do this for me, if I send my battery to them? Assuming it costs less than a new battery from Dell.If you have basic model-plane skills and know how to use a soldering iron, it takes about 30-45 minutes:

http://www.buy-laptop-batteries.com/laptop-Battery-dissected.html
http://www.laptop-junction.com/toast/content/inside-laptop-battery-dell-d610
http://www.summet.com/blog/2007/02/17/laptop-battery-refill/