Best place to buy a Thinkpad battery

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Rocket · #1 Post by **Rocket** » Sun May 23, 2004 1:47 pm

I purchased a three year old Thinkpad & the battery is no longer holding a charge for more than 15 minutes.
Can anyone recommend a place/site where I can purchase a high quality battery?
There are alot of aftermarket batteries for Thinkpads & I just want to buy one that is high quality at a decent price.
Thanks.

sktn77a · #2 Post by **sktn77a** » Sun May 23, 2004 2:20 pm

The only advice I can offer is don't buy used batteries off e-bay("looks brand new to me" - yeah, right!). Buy OEM batteries if you can afford them but I don't think they last any longer than aftermarket batteries (at least, my IBM, Compaq, Toshiba batteries never did).

I buy the cheapest new batteries with a 1 year warranty I can find after the originals die. They typically last about 12 months before they start draining more and more rapidly. Interestingly, the batteries that come new with the computers always seems to last twice as long an any I buy subsequently (OEM or aftermarket).

Go figure?????

akerman · #3 Post by **akerman** » Sun May 23, 2004 2:58 pm

Hmm.. I was going to say eBay

I bought a 6-cell battery for my t41p, and it was way cheaper than retail price, brand new (the total capacity was very close to design capacity when I got it, so that proves it had not been used).

CantStopNow · #4 Post by **CantStopNow** » Sun May 23, 2004 7:42 pm

Newegg has the 9-cell extended battery for about $90 (w/ free shipping)

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a ... 903&DEPA=3

Unfortunately I haven't seen nearly as good of a deal for the Ultrabay slim battery...

#5 Post by **K. Eng** » Sun May 23, 2004 9:05 pm

I was thinking about getting an ultrabay slim battery... until I saw the pricetag

Any idea why they are so expensive?

CantStopNow wrote:Unfortunately I haven't seen nearly as good of a deal for the Ultrabay slim battery...

awolfe63 · #6 Post by **awolfe63** » Sun May 23, 2004 10:07 pm

I've fine on ebay. Anything advertised as new has been. Otherwise, I have used pricewatch.

CantStopNow · #7 Post by **CantStopNow** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:02 am

I suspect the economies of scale don't work out so well for the slim battery. It really doesn't seem to be worth it. It's so small that it doesn't really seem to be able to hold a big charge - it seems to get you about 1.5 more hours of battery time.

tyipengr · #8 Post by **tyipengr** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:57 am

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the Ultrabay Slim battery isn't LI-ion but Li-Polymer. That should make sense since cell phone Li-polymer batteries also cost an arm.

awolfe63 · #9 Post by **awolfe63** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:13 pm

I think the real issue is the IBM factor. For some reason, IBM batteries cost twice what similar Dell batteries cost. Ultrabay batteries have always been about the same price as primary batteries for the T series. I think they were over $$150 for my T20.

Lmax · #10 Post by **Lmax** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:26 pm

K. Eng wrote:I was thinking about getting an ultrabay slim battery... until I saw the pricetag

Any idea why they are so expensive?

They are expensive because they use Li-Polymer technology. Also, they are a nice addition to your TP and are worth the $170 I paid for it.

CantStopNow wrote:I suspect the economies of scale don't work out so well for the slim battery. It really doesn't seem to be worth it. It's so small that it doesn't really seem to be able to hold a big charge - it seems to get you about 1.5 more hours of battery time.

It DOES seem to hold a big charge despite it's small size. It only has like 3 cells but for some reason being Li-Poly it runs much longer than an Ion couterpart. I was able to get 4 hours off of it on my T41p and I was doing many different things on the laptop so it wasn't just sitting there. You don't know what you are missing until you have tried this battery.

With the Slim Li-Poly and the High Capacity 9 cell main battery together I easily get about 10.5 hours or more of computing time! That is with adaptive CPU management and level 3 LCD brightness and parallel, modem, Ultranav, and bluetooth disabled.

Give the little slim batt a try, it's worth the price and reportedly has a longer overall usage lifespan.

Max

CantStopNow · #11 Post by **CantStopNow** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:28 pm

It is called the "ThinkPad Ultrabay Slim Li Polymer Battery" on IBM's website. Despite the fact that the webpage for the product states that it is a 10.8V Lithium Ion battery, I imagine it is just an error on IBM's part, and it really is a Lithium polymer battery.

http://www.batteriesamerica.com/lithium_polymer.htm

You can get a 11.1V 2.2Ah li-poly battery pack (roughly same specs) for about $60. I was unable to find a similar Li-Ion pack for comparison.

RaysMD · #12 Post by **RaysMD** » Wed May 26, 2004 7:43 pm

eBay,

I just purchased one off of ebay for $69 shipping included. It's an OEM #08K8214 battery.

Matt_ · #13 Post by **Matt_** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:15 pm

I think I might wait and see if I'm happy with the number of hours I get with the 6cell battery instead of going with the 9cell which would stick out about an inch or so.
If I do decide to buy the 9cell battery, I tried doing a search to look for any recommending (online) retailers.
About the only one I've seen recommended is newegg.com
I haven't had any experience with them. Any comments about them good or bad ?

Since the time of the last post in this thread, are there any other recommendations ?
The only other site that I saw mentioned was http://www.pinnacletechnologyusa.com/se ... =**&sp=t40

I was looking at newegg's policies regarding their warranties for new and refurbished IBM batteries:
refurbished
new
Although for something like a used battery I wouldn't expect that I should have to worry about the 15days coverage that newegg gives, still, I was wondering -- would IBM still offer its 1 year warranty despite buying a refurbished battery from someplace else ?

The other question that comes to mind is that how is it that a place such as newegg.com is able to sell IBM's 9cell battery for a price that is much cheaper than IBM's price ?

I tried checking to see if IBM sells refurbished batteries (at a price cheaper than new ones bought directly from IBM) and couldn't find anything:
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... ct=2576394

Thank you in advance

Best place to buy a Thinkpad battery

Best place to buy a Thinkpad battery

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