I have a Dell Inspiron laptop. My battery was not holding a charge so I bought an after market non-Dell battery. I get maybe 2 hrs out of a full charge even with power saver settings. Am I going to have to buy a Dell battery??
No. The best bet it to use ebay. Corny? Yes. But I bought my wife a 9 cell long life battery for her HP which was aftermarket but I got a 1 year warranty with the battery. She can get up to 6 hours. Not heavy use but web surfing. If you are doing heavy duty computing that are power intensive that will keep the fan on, CPU clocking then you are getting normal usage out of that battery. If not you got a raw deal.
I have had good experience with aftermarket batteries for laptops...and they are definitely less expensive than the "name brands." Main thing to look for is the number of cells the battery contains - more cells, longer battery life. One thing to be aware of....on some models where we have purchased replacement batteries for laptops that have a higher cell count than the original, this extra capacity is added by extending the size of the battery. In other words, instead of fitting flush with the edge of the laptop, it extends about a half inch past the edge. Larger physical battery = more storage space. Some people don't care about the look of the battery jutting out, but I've had others freak out because of it.
With ours it actually gave the laptop almost an inch of lift from the battery. so instead of extending out it extended down. Ours was a 9 cell.
I agree with Appcomm. I would add one more very important point. Check the amp/hour ratings on the batteries in the after market pack. The higher the number the longer they last. The "only" reason most after markets don't last like the OEM's is because the amp/hour rating is less. Other than that, they are identical. The bad thing about all laptop packs is the way the battery control board uses the combined cells. I break packs open all the time from junk units. There's always 2 or 3 cells that are in perfect condition while the rest won't hold a charge. I use them to refurbish my laptop battery packs. You can also buy new packs (for very outdated laptop models) dirt cheap on Ebay and use those to refurbish your own packs. For a slightly higher price than the after markets, but less than OEM's, there are web sites that will refurbish your battery pack with quality high amp/hour batteries. So if you still have your old dell pack, and you haven't done anything to it that has ruined the circuit board inside it, you can send it off and you'll get a good replacement for not much more than you just spent. The key to keeping that new battery lasting, is in the charge cycles. Plenty of tips on the web if you google laptop battery charging tips.
