x230 Aftermarket Batteries

[Terrice]

Hey!

I am planning to buy an x230 on kijiji that comes with no battery. I've looked into it, and deemed genuine batteries as too expensive. In fact, it basically costs almost as much as the laptop. I am wondering about your experiences with aftermarket batteries, whether from aliexpress, amazon, or ebay. I'd also like to hear about your recommendations.

I've heard fairly good things about KingSener batteries.

Thank you for any advice!

[mpcook]

I have bought Lenovo batteries on Amazon for about $75 - $80. I bought two aftermarket batteries, that I returned. The Lenovo batteries are still going strong.

[whqdz]

You can find genuine battery at a good price on ebay. Just take a look and be aware of new items.
Two years ago I bought 2x genuine 9 cell battery for less than 30$ on ebay, both wth 0 or 1 charge cycle count.

Just don't buy to chinese sellers because the quality isn't the same that to UK or US sellers (or others).

[RealBlackStuff]

FYI: if you want to use non-Lenovo batteries, you MUST do the battery-check EC firmware mod as described at the top of this forum.

[Terrice]

I have bought Lenovo batteries on Amazon for about $75 - $80. I bought two aftermarket batteries, that I returned. The Lenovo batteries are still going strong.

That is around $100CAD. A genuine battery on Canadian Amazon costs $130CAD. That's over 50% of the price of the laptop.

You can find genuine battery at a good price on ebay. Just take a look and be aware of new items.
Two years ago I bought 2x genuine 9 cell battery for less than 30$ on ebay, both wth 0 or 1 charge cycle count.

Just don't buy to chinese sellers because the quality isn't the same that to UK or US sellers (or others).

This is interesting to me. Unfortunately, it does not appear I can do something like this currently. 2 years ago, x230 batteries were much more popular.

FYI: if you want to use non-Lenovo batteries, you MUST do the battery-check EC firmware mod as described at the top of this forum.

Yep. I know about this

Additional Update: I am likely going to go for a different listing. There is one with an x230 that has a TN screen and 4gb of ram. However, it has a brand new battery (supposedly changed by an IT guy as the seller has no techincal background). It appears that adding more ram and replacing the screen is cheaper than buying a new battery.

Therefore, if someone could give me advice towards a panel, it would be great This is what I am considering:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/12-5-IN ... st=ae803_5

[dr_st]

Therefore, if someone could give me advice towards a panel, it would be great This is what I am considering:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/12-5-IN ... st=ae803_5

The consensus is that -SLT1 is the best quality of "drop-in" compatible screens, -SLB3 is second best, and -SLB1 is the old panel with frequent image retention/white spot issues, best to avoid.

I don't know if -SLT2 is compatible.

Beware of Aliexpress sellers, and any sellers in general who say they may send a "compatible" screen. "Compatible" may not necessarily by IPS. Make sure that you communicate with the seller and get a guarantee on the exact panel model they send out.

[whqdz]

You can find genuine battery at a good price on ebay. Just take a look and be aware of new items.
Two years ago I bought 2x genuine 9 cell battery for less than 30$ on ebay, both wth 0 or 1 charge cycle count.

Just don't buy to chinese sellers because the quality isn't the same that to UK or US sellers (or others).

This is interesting to me. Unfortunately, it does not appear I can do something like this currently. 2 years ago, x230 batteries were much more popular.

That's the deal : keep an eye on the market

Months ago I was looking for a genuine brand new x240 72w battery but the prices were too high to me, around 60-70€ on the bay. I finally found one, from a individual seller that got 3 of these, still brand new and genuine it costs me 25€ with charges. I agree that when you want a good deal, you have to check constantly for good deals.

[Terrice]

Therefore, if someone could give me advice towards a panel, it would be great This is what I am considering:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/12-5-IN ... st=ae803_5

The consensus is that -SLT1 is the best quality of "drop-in" compatible screens, -SLB3 is second best, and -SLB1 is the old panel with frequent image retention/white spot issues, best to avoid.

I don't know if -SLT2 is compatible.

Beware of Aliexpress sellers, and any sellers in general who say they may send a "compatible" screen. "Compatible" may not necessarily by IPS. Make sure that you communicate with the seller and get a guarantee on the exact panel model they send out.

Ah yes I've researched this

I decided to go for SLB3 as it is less expensive than STL1. Unless there is something about the STL1 that is better than SLB3 that could change my mind

[Terrice]

This is interesting to me. Unfortunately, it does not appear I can do something like this currently. 2 years ago, x230 batteries were much more popular.

That's the deal : keep an eye on the market

Months ago I was looking for a genuine brand new x240 72w battery but the prices were too high to me, around 60-70€ on the bay. I finally found one, from a individual seller that got 3 of these, still brand new and genuine it costs me 25€ with charges. I agree that when you want a good deal, you have to check constantly for good deals.

Wow! Great find!

I am constantly looking around for good prices on batteries. Problem is, those that ship from China are probably scams, and those that ship from the US have intense shipping costs and import charges. While the Canadian market is quite low on these batteries.

[RealBlackStuff]

Get yourself a shipping address or a (girl)friend just across the US border.
Toronto isn't that far out!

[Terrice]

Get yourself a shipping address or a (girl)friend just across the US border.
Toronto isn't that far out!

hahaha I wish! Unfortunately I'm still a minor and those options are not available to me. I'm simply chasing thinkpads because: #1, the absolutely amazing keyboard, #2, I don't wanna use a chromebook, #3, tinkering with linux is lots of fun

[whqdz]

That's the deal : keep an eye on the market

Months ago I was looking for a genuine brand new x240 72w battery but the prices were too high to me, around 60-70€ on the bay. I finally found one, from a individual seller that got 3 of these, still brand new and genuine it costs me 25€ with charges. I agree that when you want a good deal, you have to check constantly for good deals.

Wow! Great find!

I am constantly looking around for good prices on batteries. Problem is, those that ship from China are probably scams, and those that ship from the US have intense shipping costs and import charges. While the Canadian market is quite low on these batteries.

Yeah I agree with the great deal I had. It didn't need time to me thinking about buying it, I knew it was a great deal after weeks and weeks of f5 refreshing on ebay searchs.

I'm in the same boat looking for specific parts as screens and complete lid, some are from trusted sellers located in US and shipping to US / Canada, and the others are from China but from my own experience I won't take the risk to spend more than 30$ in a product from china sellers. Too many problems (batteries, keyboards...) and the delivery delay is just terrible.

I have a US address where I can ship it but the problem is to bring it with me in the plane : I have to pay a lot in order to protect it well in a good package, the risk of breaking it is too high, and I don't want to have to explain (and loosing time, especially at the US border that is so... long) to the security why I have some "weird stuff full of cables and batteries" in my bags

[Terrice]

Wow! Great find!

I am constantly looking around for good prices on batteries. Problem is, those that ship from China are probably scams, and those that ship from the US have intense shipping costs and import charges. While the Canadian market is quite low on these batteries.

Yeah I agree with the great deal I had. It didn't need time to me thinking about buying it, I knew it was a great deal after weeks and weeks of f5 refreshing on ebay searchs.

I'm in the same boat looking for specific parts as screens and complete lid, some are from trusted sellers located in US and shipping to US / Canada, and the others are from China but from my own experience I won't take the risk to spend more than 30$ in a product from china sellers. Too many problems (batteries, keyboards...) and the delivery delay is just terrible.

I have a US address where I can ship it but the problem is to bring it with me in the plane : I have to pay a lot in order to protect it well in a good package, the risk of breaking it is too high, and I don't want to have to explain (and loosing time, especially at the US border that is so... long) to the security why I have some "weird stuff full of cables and batteries" in my bags

Yeah I feel you...

I ended up buying an aftermarket battery for x220 on Amazon and then doing the EC flash. I am looking for a replacement screen cover on ebay that ships from Canada at the moment.

[samveen]

FYI: if you want to use non-Lenovo batteries, you MUST do the battery-check EC firmware mod as described at the top of this forum.

Funny story:
I got myself an after-market battery manufactured in China with a company label "Irvine" for USD 25. I connected it up, not sure of what to expect, but the battery worked just fine. The battery capacity is listed as 4400 MAH and the voltage as registered by linux varies from 11.6 to 10.3 volts over a cycle (as listed in Xubuntu's Xfce Power Manager).

When I took a look at the details of the battery(in Power Manager again), it's showing itself as a Sanyo 45N1023, clearly indicating that it contains one of the following:
1. A Sanyo board inside it.
2. Sanyo firmware on some random board.
3. A custom firmware on a random board that's programmed to identify itself as a `Sanyo` and possibly return other false data when queried as detailed in the `Funny s**t` section below


Funny s**t about the battery that I've noticed:
1. The battery displays a design capasity of 48.8 WH, but actual fully charged capasity keeps showing different values ranging from 82% of full capacity and then back up to 92%. Currently it's indicating a 88% charge.
2. At 100%, linux's power indicator gives battery left time greater than 12 hours consistently (varying from 15 hours to one instance of 21 hours plus change), but the last 6 cycles show that the battery doesn't last longer than 3 hours, whatever the workload.
3. The tail end drops reaaaaaallly quickly: Linux does an auto-shutdown when battery falls below 5% with the original Lenovo battery, but with this, it goes from 20% to power down so quickly that linux doesn't register anything beyond a popup for low battery.
4. The battery doesn't give a cycle count, which is really bugging me as I want to show the seller the details.

I've had the battery for 4 days now, and I've been using just it, running full charge and discharge cycles on it, hoping to get it to recalibrate itself, but I'm getting the feeling that the firmware is messing around with it's calibration data to report inflated charge values. i was hoping that it will firm down to a believable value close to reality, but it seems a faint hope.

[wujstefan]

You can drop me a line - those batteries (genuine) are pretty cheap in Poland.

[boberto19]

After perusing many thinkpad battery threads on various forums, I learned a few things:

-All NEW batteries labeled "genuine lenovo" on ebay/Amazon are FAKE- legit lenovo batteries are only available from lenovo, thats why the ebay/amazon knockoffs are so cheap

-these imitation batteries use low grade chinese cells that generally crap out within a year or less, and have sub-design capacity

-The used real lenovo batteries typically perform better than the "new" knockoffs. The knockoffs typically do not have a mfg date stamped on them, and the real ones have a less bright label.

-I learned about a "legit" chinese battery assembler named KINGSENER that uses strictly grade A Japanese and korean cells (sanyo/LG- same as Lenovo OEM)

They cost more than the ebay/amazon knockoffs, but offer equal or greater than legit lenovo perforamance.

I bought a Kingsener 72wh battery for my T450s from ali express, and have been more than pleasantly surprised. As good as/better than Lenovo, but less than half the price ($44; price may be different for your model)

After cyclig it a few times, I ran a windows battery report- its design capacity is 72wh, but its real capacity is 75wh. 16 hour battery life with internet browsing and word processing mixed with video here and there is normal now.

Never again going with crappy ebay batteries. Kingsener sells direct on Aliexpress. No I don't work for them, I took a risk ordering based on a random guy's post, but it paid off nicely.