Help choosing a battery. Poll

My laptop battery has been shot for about 2 years. I just have been too cheap to buy one. I decide it is time to get a new battery so I don't have to always have to plug it in. The first battery lasted about 20 months before going down hill.

The Toshiba Battery is notorious for lasting about 16 months IMO that is crazy especially for the price you pay. The reviews are really bad for it. 2 stars I think. About $85 from Toshiba
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=322639
From amazon it is $60
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBYSXE/?tag=cpf0b6-20

The other option is to buy a battery off of amazon for less than half the price and take my chances with that. It can't be much worse than the Toshiba.
$32
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QWZ5NI/?tag=cpf0b6-20

Any danger in buying the off brand? I heard somewhere that cheap laptop batteries tend to catch fire.

Id go with the 32$ one, because its probably not any worse than the original indeed. And especially for an old computer paying 80$ for a battery is just too much.

T0RN4D0 said:

Id go with the 32$ one, because its probably not any worse than the original indeed. And especially for an old computer paying 80$ for a battery is just too much.

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Do you think it will catch fire? I keep reading things about cheap laptop batteries catching fire.

Over the years, I have bought a laptop battery for my IBM T21 from Hong Kong supplier. No, not Hong Kong, from NJ. System Integration Business was located via eBay. I had also bought one earlier from sibusa.com and was using it to experiment with and discovered leaving things running until the 10.8v died was a BAD idea. It stayed at zero and wont charge anymore. Aparantly the electronics inside 'says' "you killed it and now you HAVE to buy another." OK so now more experimenting with laptop batteries I need to use for laptops. The second buy is still good 2.5 years later. :twothumbs I started with nearly 3 hours back in 07 and in 10 it is over 2 hours maybe 2.5 or so. I usually recharge before I have used 2 hours. I'll probably buy another from them when the time comes around some day.

Edit: I didn't see Sibusa offerings. Standard is 6 cell, also 9 cell, and one 12 cell @ $80. There is one 9 cell that is a bit more compact at only 7200MAH rather than the std 4400MAH, ship included -- only $55 (Probably fits, found using your battery number in search, it probably sticks out the back or front for extra cells.)

No i dont think it will catch fire.

I'm so glad you are having us choose between packs; I was worried you were doing a rebuild and asking which battery brand was recommended. I said Amazon - genuine product. You're house burning down is not worth $30.

I bought an off brand rechargeable battey for my camera once, saved about $30 but it only took about 5 pictures compared to OEM's 200, never again.

I bought a battery from Amazon one time and they sold me a used battery as a new one.

AMEX reversed the charges for me.

Be careful. Good Luck.:wave:

I would also recommend checking to see if you can get a date of mfg for the battery you choose. Li-ion has a fixed life of about 4 years regardless of use.

Go to Batteries Plus or somewhere like that and get the pack rebuilt?

I've read about several instances of third party camera batteries catching fire when charging, and in one case partially burning down a house. Unless there is a good reason to think the third party unit is well built, I'd go for the Toshiba branded item.

I've had good luck with McVolt batteries:

http://www.mcvolt.com/

NutSAK said:

I've had good luck with McVolt batteries:

http://www.mcvolt.com/

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Thank you. I will check them out.

Try this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/8800mAh-Battery..._Batteries?hash=item53df3f6f24#ht_4030wt_1137

I bought a high-capacity battery for my laptop on eBay, shipped from Hong Kong. It lasts twice as long as the stock battery (over 5hrs web browsing), and haven't measured any decrease (reading battery info in Linux) in the past four months of use.