I've had my X220 for about eight months, and despite spending the vast majority of its life being plugged in, it's now failing. The life of the fully charged six cell battery seems to be about 110 minutes (38.2 wh from an original 62.16), down from over four hours when I first got it. My power settings are pretty conservative, and haven't changed since I got it.

Is the nine cell any tougher than this? Or should I look for an aftermarket battery? I'm not very pleased with an ultraportable that can't even do two hours on battery less than a year after I bought it.

and despite spending the vast majority of its life being plugged in


If you will be doing 100% AC time, keep your battery at 40%-80%. Never, ever, ever, do 100% if you will be using it on AC mainly (unless company laptop and you don't care). Also, unless really using it, avoid full discharges as well. 40%-80% is golden range for Li-Ion batteries.

You might want to open Power Manager to see what the condition of the battery is. If it's bad enough, Lenovo may replace it if it's still under warranty.

There must be something wrong with your battery. I have X220tablet since 07/2011 (so the age is very similar to yours) and I have 63Wh capacity (original was around 64Wh). I use it on battery quite often in school and charge to 85%. Battery has around 60cycles.

Reset the battery gauge inside Battery Manager.
It will bring it back to close to original state.
Takes a long time to do though.

What if I use the laptop mainly on AC, but every once in a while I want to take it outside and enjoy full battery life, which is what a lot of us do, I guess. According to these instructions I will either limit myself to 80% of my battery's capacity or have to plan ahead every trip away from AC, and precharge my battery to 100%, play with thresholds, then set them back to whatever they were. Does not strike me as good use of my time.

You say to avoid full discharges unless really using it. What does "using it" mean? If you are in a situation where you need a full discharge, isn't it "using it", by definition? Perhaps you mean - use AC whenever possible. This I do agree with.

I also don't necessarily buy into the theory that being fully charged or undergoing full / almost full discharges is bad for the battery. In my experience with Thinkpad batteries, I found absolutely no correlation between these factors and battery longevity. What I did find though is that if your battery is made with good cells (Panasonic), it will likely last for years with only reasonable capacity decrease (~20%). If it is made with mediocre cells (Sanyo), it will likely lose about 50% of its capacity about 2-2.5 years after manufacture date (depending on use too), and then continue to degrade from that point. Sony cells I have no experience with, but they seem even worse.

That is of course, barring the possibility that a battery will just die completely due to a bad cell or faulty electronics. This happens too, and again, no storage/use pattern will protect you from it.

And what is the worst thing that can happen? The battery will go bad, and you will spend another $50-$100 on a new one after 2 years? Not a big deal really, considering that most people will have either upgraded their laptop or spent 10 times more than that amount on junk/gadgets during those two years anyway.

Too often with these advice on how to prolong battery life, I feel that people lose track of the fact that our tools should serve us, and not vice versa. Everyone would want his battery to be "like new", and everyone would like his laptop to stay "mint", but if you buy those things to use, and not to display in a showcase, it's just not possible. "You can't eat the cake and leave it whole".

[/rant]

You are right but I don't think it is so big, time conusming problem sometimes change battery charge thresholds.

But I would appreciate a button "full charge battery" after right-clicking power meter icon in system tray instead of "remove and replace battery" for example...

I agree with you nobody should ever be thinking about how they should be using their laptop battery, we have way too many things in life to worry about than figuring how best to use a laptop battery, when to charge to it to fuill, when to charge it to half, when to discharge, when not to discharge.
Who has the time? Nobody.

I've been using my Thinkpads and I have quite a few of them with complete disregard for battery maintenance for years. I plug it in whenever I want and unplug it whenever I want.

The trick to maintaining your battery is manually performing a battery gauge reset once every few months. I've done this for all my Thinkpads, believe it or not my X301's main 6 cell battery still hold 97% of it's original charge capacity. This battery is well over 2 years old. Almost 3.

The answer to your question is simple, use the battery with complete disregard for any maintenance issues, but do a manual battery gauge reset every 3-4 months and you're gonna be fine.

If Lenovo's price for replacement batteries wasn't so high ($231 + shipping for an X200 battery in the UK) people would be less particular about their longevity, I suspect. They would be inclined to use batteries as they were intended, as a proportionately priced consumable.

Rather than an impediment to using the machine as the "every day" tool that we thought it would be at the time of purchase.

Lenovo isn't solely to blame, the price of OEM replacement batteries is the curse of the portable computer user, IMO.

Thats where Ebay comes in.
Most batteries as long as they are mainstream, can be bought directly from the manufacturers in China off Ebay for half the price of OEM batteries.

You can't really blame Lenovo for charging so much for batteries, this is one of there biggest profit zones. The markup on batteries is a necessity considering how low laptop prices have been pushed. They have no choice but to make money on accessories.

Its kind of like Printer companies and their markup on toners. Anything that can be made cheaply and marked up through OEM retail is good for business.

I agree, eBay has its uses and many users of portable computers can find an alternative (of acceptable quality) to OEM batteries, with some research.

That's what they would like you to believe. If fact the quality of everything except the packaging is generally far inferior to the genuine manufacture's branded product.... and forget about trying to assert any warranty claim on a manufacturer in China

Cheers,

Bill B.

A lot of the times these are the same manufacturers who produce the OEM batteries.

got any hard evidence to back that up?

i've never once seen an aftermarket battery made by an OEM who is under exclusive contract with PC manufacturers to produce batteries.   the same goes for mobile handsets.

anything purchased from ebay sold as "OEM equivalent" is absolute junk made as cheaply as possible, cells and housings included.   that's a known fact throughout the PC industry.

I've got no proof, but if you think the OEMs are not made as cheap as possible than you're wrong.
Most of the battery manufacturers bid on OEM contracts, and the cheapest bid usually wins.

I've used non OEMs on both my old T61 as well as my X301.
In fact I'm still using a non OEM 3 Cell bay battery for my X301, it's proven to be quite good.

If you have proof that the non OEMs are absolute junk I'd love to see some.
My original OEM 3 Cell Bay Battery died on me a little over 1 year into use, my non OEM is still working at full charge to this day.

If the non OEMs are absolute junk as you say, all those sellers on Ebay would have nothing but negative feedback and would probably go outta business from defective returns and Ebay payment protection. Yet, if you look, most people who buy non OEM are quite happy with them.

The same can be said about Laser Ink Cartridges. Over the years, I've never bought a single OEM Laser toner. I've always bought my laser toners non OEM from private dealers, and the print quality have been exactly the same as my original. There are things that I buy OEM, and things I don't. Ink toners and batteries have never been something I'd be willing to pay full price for.

it's your claim to back up though.

i never said original batteries aren't made as cheap as possible.   but, there's a vast difference between a battery made to fit within specifications, pass safety tests, and meet design and longevity criteria than a generic knock-off made in some cut-rate factory using antiquated equipment passing no tests and producing an end product that consistently fails early.

this discussion has plenty: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=81114

ebay feedback is irrelevant.   very few poorly-made batteries will fail within the 30-day window of feedback.

laser ink?   i'll leave that one alone.

I think you're being overtly cliched here. What's next, children wearing dirty face guards, and pregnant women with aprons working overtime in sweaty factories in Kowloon. The only difference between an OEM and an non OEM is the sticker on the battery. One factory paid the right people off and landed the OEM contract, the other factory didn't pay the right people off and didn't land the OEM contract. Guess what? Factory number 2 is not gonna closeup shop just cause they didn't land the OEM contract, they get their hands on the schematics and continue to make the batteries anyways and sell them privately at a lower rate.
I used to have a friend who ran a bunch of PC Shops in Beijing. He swears that if you can strip apart a good non OEM battery and the same OEM battery you won't be able to tell the difference cause they come from the same machines using the same schematics. Difference is one comes with a OEM sticker the other doesn't.

I'm inclined to believe him, because from my personal experience with non OEM Toner and Batteries, there is no difference.


How is this proof??????? I see a bunch of people each giving there opinions of non OEM batteries some say they are good, some say they are bad?
You may need to update your definition of proof, if you think a forum discussion on batteries is proof of anything.
Try a recognized NEWS Article that says non OEM Thinkpad batteries from China explode or something of the such.
I've actually seen more defective OEMs than non OEMs to tell you the truth.
My old 3 Cell Bay battery dropped from 25wh to 15wh in less than 100 charge cycles, it died after one year of use.
There's OEM quality for you. Money well spent.

As for self discharge. I used to keep a spare 6 Cell T61 battery in my laptop bag for travel. I would charge it up to 100% and then leave it for when I travelled. This was an OEM Lenovo Battery. Never once did I ever find the battery to be %100 when I used it. Once I left for a few months and when I used it again, it was down to someting like %15 charge.

i'm inclined to believe lenovo's own battery engineers.   it's an industry-wide fact that knockoff batteries are not made on the same equipment.   lenovo uses cells made by panasonic, sanyo (now owned by panasonic), sony, and LG.   housing assemblies are made by lite-on, wistron, foxconn, and mitsubishi.   controller boards are made by YEC, foxconn, delta, and lite-on.   not one of these companies manufacture components for generic batteries ultimately sold on ebay.   none.   knockoffs are manufactured by small companies on low-cost equipment.   if components appear similar then it's due to them being a close copy, not because they're the same.   reverse engineering isn't difficult.

the linked discussion is evidence of other experiences.   nothing more, nothing less.

you've mentioned above having experience with one X301 battery.   that's a rather small sample.   i've had literally thousands of thinkpad batteries cross my desk over the last 19+ years and have yet to see a generic worth its weight in electrolytes.

i respect your opinion that your X301 battery is sufficient but nothing you've said above changes my experiences and opinion that generics are complete junk.   we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Agreed.
Now how do you feel about generic Laser Toners?

I'm confused. Controller boards, housings etc, I can understand. But what about the cells themselves? Are you saying that the cell manufacturers only sell their cells to OEMs, and it's impossible to get them outside of a finished battery? I find this difficult to believe. And if it is possible, then what prevents a "generic" battery manufacturer from using the same cells also found inside OEM batteries?

I've seen some generic batteries that Lenovo's software identifies as Sony/Sanyo batteries. Some generic battery sellers on eBay state "our batteries use cells by Sanyo/Panasonic/Samsung". Are these all lies then?

Talk about stereotype and time past. We haven't got much serious manufacturing industry left here in Hong Kong so the Kowloon thing is a bit outdated.

The dissing of warranty claims with manufacturer in China is also a bit over the top. Granted if one's talking about those eBayers, but to put it into perspective...

Cheers.

I believe it is possible to buy genuine Sanyo/Panasonic/Samsung cells if you're not an OEM. But I also believe that generic batteries claiming to have these cells can be lying.
For one thing, bare cells aren't smart. They have a positive terminal and a negative terminal. They can't tell the battery "I am a Panasonic", etc etc. Therefore, it is the battery controller board's job to tell the computer "I have Panasonic cells in me", and nothing stops a generic battery manufacturer from using one brand of cells and programming their controller board to report another brand.
For another, if you frequent certain e-commerce sites in China, you will know that people sell cells that are salvaged from disassembled batteries. Many sellers are upfront about the fact, but it's only reasonable to imagine that some people will try to pass these recycled cells as new, and some people will build "new" generic batteries from these recycled cells. So the shiny generic battery you get from eBay may very well have cells exceeding 1000 cycles, and you'll never know.

twistero got it correct.   unless you disassemble the actual cell and compare the construction, there's no way to know if a cell is truly the same quality as those produced by sony/sanyo/panasonic/LG.   the controller board EPROM can claim anything it wants.

that's not to say that good cells aren't used in some aftermarket batteries.   the problem is in knowing exactly which ones use good cells.   anyone selling a $25~50 digitally-controlled LiIon battery is going to try and maximize profit as much as possible and doing so requires low-quality or used parts to be implemented.   original batteries are expensive because the components are expensive and must undergo and pass strict tests.   many aftermarket batteries claim certifications that were never earned.

regarding warranty, aftermarket batteries are typically made so inexpensively that any warranty claims result in a new battery being sent and the old one thrown in the trash.   you can't afford to do that unless you're making something inexpensively enough to justify that business model.   original batteries that fail under warranty are captured, rebuilt, and resold as refurbished.   many times a simple re-flash of the controller's EPROM is all that's needed.   in the event that a cell fails, the individual cell is replaced.


i was poking fun at that point because you originally said "ink" instead of "toner".   but, to answer the question, i honestly don't print enough to have experience with remanufactured toner cartridges.   my decade-old laserjet is still on its original 4500-page cartridge.

Overall, this is a legitimate business model both for the producer and the consumer. The producer cuts cost, produces expendable goods, and does not mind replacing one occasionally (often they are willing to give 3-year warranties, which no OEM battery manufacturer gives you). The consumer buys something at 1/2 or 1/3 the prices of the genuine thing, and accepts the higher risk of failure (which, especially if backed up by the appropriate warranty is at least not painful economically).