Can you buy BETTER laptop batteries?

D

Dario D.

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Dec 8, 2004
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Can you usually expect to find BETTER replacement batteries for most models, or are you usually pretty much stuck with whatever was designed to work with the laptop?

I ask because I'm looking into getting a used Dell Inspiron 9400 E1705, but its average battery life is only 2 hours. The similar 1520 laptop lasts 3 hours (but smaller screen), so I'm trying to figure out if you can buy better batteries for whatever laptop.

So far, I can't find any on Google, but then again, it's hard to tell, because none say: "Lasts X amount of time". I think they measure in mAh, or volts, or cells, or something. See, the default battery for the Dell E1705 laptop is 6-cell, but this here is 9 cell, and I don't know what that means. I'm guessing it adds the extra hour, but I'm a laptop-battery noob.

Oh, and what kind of life-span can you *generally* expect these batteries to have? Are we talking hundreds of charges, or thousands? I've never stressed a laptop battery enough to be able to tell.
 
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cells refer to the number of cells inside the battery.
mAh is the total capacity of the battery and the best indicator of relative battery length.
AFAIK you can expect about 500 charge cycles for Li-Ion batteries.
 
I found a "better battery" for my Evo a few years ago. It had something like 20% more capacity. Worked really well. Take a look around the web and see if you can find one.

I miss my evo... the original netbook. Five hours of battery life with the new battery.
 
You can try 3rd party batteries that are outside official specs, but may be risky since the laptop may not be designed to track the higher capacity.

In the case of the AAO, official packs are 3cell and 6cell batteries. But there are 3rd party batteries that hold 9 cells.

Battery life is between 500-800 cycles. That's about 2 years. At the end of the two years you can have the battery repacked. It's a simple process. They break your battery casing in two, check the kinds of cell inside (Many laptop companies have the same batteries actually) and replace it with identical cells with the same type and manufacturer.
 
If you want better battery life about all you can do is seek out a battery pack with more cells. Sometimes you won't like the extra bulk but if your goal is better battery life there will be tradeoffs.

You can check battery pack's mah ratings to get an idea of capacity but it is very easy to fudge those numbers. Mah is greatly affected by discharge rate and cell temperature assuming they were actually tested at all. Basically if you find two packs with similar mah ratings you're better off flipping a coin to choose one than picking the one with a slightly higher mah rating-- especially if you're looking at packs from a 3rd party.

In general just assume you've got about 2 years before you'll want to replace your battery pack with a new one. Maybe more or less. Mostly depends a lot on how it is used. Best practice is to just plug in AC whenever it is available and not only when lowbattery warning pops up.
 
The key parameter you should focus is the capacity. To one laptop, all other conditions are not variable,the larger the capacity,the longer it lasts. And the amp,cells are only the factores which makes influence on the capacity.
Look at this Dell Inspiron E1705 battery, it comes with capacity of 6600mAh 9 cells,usually has a longer life-span than the 6cells 4400mAh.
 
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