Thinkpads Forum

what kind of battery life are you guys getting? I'm not sure what to expect with this one I have, its not a genuine lenovo battery, and the power manager is telling me that its in "poor" condition. and I don't know if thats just because it knows it not genuine and it wants me to get a lenovo one, or if they shipped me a bad battery.


I bought this computer on ebay about a week ago, and the battery came separate (as the seller said). I got to looking at the package it came in, and it says "ATC" I googled it and came up with this: http://tinyurl.com/4s3mfrh but their store front is "temporarily closed".

I'm fine with a third party battery, but I am just concerned as to whether or not its a good one.

so my question is, what should I expect for battery life doing what? and does the power manager always say a battery is in poor condition if its 3RD party?



Thanks, Trey.

Chinese batteries are usually filled with the cheap low-capacity cells, that's why you might get somewhere around 40W*h from the 6-cell battery (original Lenovo 6-cell battery is 56W*h).
Also, they often write some nonsense in the "design capacity", which has do nothing with the actual capacity. Power Manager sees that current battery capacity is a way lower than design capacity and believes that this is because battery is really old and lost its capacity, so it marks the battery as being in "poor" condition.
Also, the battery actually might be old, if you purchased a used laptop.

strangely enough its saying the battery is in "good" condition now. I guess it needed to break in?

so are genuine lenovo batteries worth it? whats a good alternative? I know chinese batteries are crappy, but what are some good alternative brands?


edit:

I was able to stretch it to 3 hours. I'd say thats pretty good for a 4 cell. I think I'll end up getting a 9 cell, if only for the awesomeness of 5+ hours of life

TreyRust wrote:so are genuine lenovo batteries worth it?

It is pain to answer this question. From one side, chinese knock-offs are really unreliable and of really low capacity. From the other side, pricing of lenovo genuine batteries makes me cry.
I decided not to buy batteries separately at all. When $200 are hidden in laptop's price, i can force myself not to think about battery price (and anyway i'm not able to change it), but when i need to pay $200 in cash just to get this battery...