Laptop battery

[Q]

Does anyone have any good experiences buying laptop batteries?

My Dell Inspiron 9300 needs a new battery but Dell wants $160 for one and all of the reviews seem to agree that they only last 1-2 years.

There are lots of batteries available online ranging in price from $30-$100, but it's hard to tell which vendors aren't sketchy.

[Kermit]

I was just looking up the same thing last week. My 9300's battery will only go about 3-5 minutes fully charged.

I came to the same conclusion you did. For $160 I can put a down payment in for a new laptop, but a $30 battery from Generics 'R Us makes me nervous.

Let me know what you choose and I'll probably buy the same.

[Q]

I had a really rough time finding much information on any battery brands or vendors. I refuse to give Dell $150 for a battery that's going to die in 1-2 years.

I decided to just get this (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RYUZSK) one. I figure if I'm going to get screwed by a sketchy vendor, it might as well be for $35 instead of $80+ :p.

The battery is only 53Wh, but I generally don't need a lot of battery time. The more expensive ones can be 80Wh+.

[Kermit]

Nice,

I had this one in my amazon cart (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001254YOK/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A1BREQ8I6OHSBG&v=glance)but you could pretty much get 2 of yours for the same price. I don't mind a shorter lifespan, I just need enough juice that if I'm on the road with the laptop I can get any data I need and then shut it back down. I have a power inverter for the car and though I know it's wasteful and stupid to convert DC to AC and then back to DC again, it rarely gets used anyway.

[Q]

Heh, my delivery estimate is March 4, 2009 - March 19, 2009. Gee, thanks!

[Q]

So far so good with the battery - the delivery was much quicker than expected.

Just had my first unplugged adventure - battery lasted close to an hour and the battery icon estimated 31% charge left with no power saving measures enabled. Good enough for my needs!

[Kermit]

Good to hear. I'll place my order tonight!

[Q]

The only question mark now is the lifetime of the battery, but since I can buy 4 of these for the price of one Dell battery I'm not too worried about it :D.

[Tai]

You got one of the "guaranteed not to explode" ones, right?