Your laptop battery is influenced by many factors, including age, environmental conditions and frequency of use. If the your laptop battery is losing its charge faster than it used to, the battery is probably dying and you will need to replace the laptop battery. 

Each laptop battery has a finite number of cycles that it can be charged and discharged. The number of cycles can be anywhere from a low of around 300 to a high of about 1200. However, 500 charging cycles is pretty typical for most standard laptop batteries. Battery performance begins to  deteriorate once this maximum number of charge cycles has been reached.

The laptop battery's ability to power the laptop comuter will depend on several factors, most notably the hardware that is installed in the laptop and the number and complexity of the software applications that are being used. Generally speaking, the battery shoulld be able to power the computer for two to three hours before it needs to be recharged. As previously stated, battery life is dependent on the number of cycles that the battery is charged and discharged. This will translate to a normal bettery lifetime of about 1.5 - 2 years. When the laptop battery has reached the end of its useful life, you must find a replacement laptop battery for your cpmputer.

The following steps are a summary of  what needs to be done to replace your laptop battery. 

1. Buy a New Battery - Make sure you purchase a replacement that is compatible with your laptop.
2. Unpack the New Battery - Remove all packaging material and keep have the new battery ready to be popped in immediately.
3. Undock Laptop - If your laptop is connected to a docking device, you need to unlock it before attempting to replace the battery.
4. Turn Off Laptop - You may not want to lose any files you are working on or risk corruption of software, so it may be better to turn off the laptop.
5. Unplug AC Power/Internet Connection - It is a good practice to disconnect your laptop from the AC outlet, Internet and Telephone before replacing the battery.
6. Flip the Laptop Over - Most laptops have the battery release mechanism on the underside of the laptop. If you are not sure where you should look you can refer to the documentation of the laptop or have Technical support guide you.
7. Unlock and Remove Old Battery - Laptop batteries usually use a two-step locking mechanism, first there are latches that need to be released and then a sliding motion has to be performed to release it completely. Your documentation can be invaluable in this.
8. Position New Battery - Follow the reverse process for fixing the new battery. First slide and then latch the new battery. If the latches get stuck, you may need to adjust the positioning.
9. Charge Battery - Bring laptop to usual position; replace all the cables that you disconnected earlier, including the AC power. Charge your battery for the duration specified by the manufacturer before using it.

NiCad batteries are one of the oldest technologies used for OEM and replacement laptop batteries. However, although this technology is used in rechargeable devices for mechanical devides, it is not used in today's replacement laptop batteries. NiCad batteries are heavy compared to todays laptop and notebook batteries and have a poor power to weight ratio. NiCad laptop batteries are also subject to memory effect. The NiCad batteries also are manufactured with heavy metals, and are difficult to dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries succeeded NiCad batteries in laptop computer use. They are less prone to memory effects and the offer a better power to weight ratio than NiCad batteries. However, NiMH battery technology has, for the most part, been discontinued for the manufacture of replacement laptop batteries.

Today, most OEM and replacement laptop battery manufacturers employ Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) technology. Since they are relatively light compared to their power, they are also commonly found in cell phones and digital cameras and camcorders. Li-Ion batteries do not suffer from the memory effect phenomenom and are easier to dispose of than the older technologies. However, these batteries tend to lose their power charge quickly when then are near the end of their useful life, so consider this a warning that a replacement laptop battery will soon be required if you find that your laptop battery will not hold its charge.

Your laptop computer battery's life will vary depending on how your laptop comuter is configured and used. Operating time can be expanded by adjusting the screen's brightness to a lower level, disabling unused peripheral devices and exiting any unused software applications. Most laptop computer's have a software utility to adjust the computer's laptop battery power options. Today's laptop batteries will generally power a laptop computer for anywhere from two to five hours depending on the charge capacity of the OEM or replacement laptop battery and the computer's power requirements.

When buying a replacement laptop battery for your computer, you will likely find several options availabe from both the original equipment manufacturer and the secondary manufacturers. Although you will need to purchase the same battery technology and voltage rating as the original battery, consider upgrading your computer's operating life by purchasing a replacement laptop battery with a higher amperage rating.

It’s good practice that you clean the battery and computer's contacts with a lint free cloth and rubbing alcohol if the contacts become dirty. This will help you maintain a good power connection and will provide a more efficient power operation of your laptop. It will also help prolong the life of your laptop battery.

To conserve power when you are not near an electrical outlet, it is a good ides to limit the peripheral devices and software programs that are being used. Extraneous hardware devices and running programs consume power. The best way to reduce power consumption in a laptop computer is to reduce the brightness of the display panel.

If you need to keep your laptop computer plugged in to its AC adapter to keep your laptop running, it probably means that your laptop's battery is dying. If that's the case, then it's time for you to start looking for a replacement laptop battery. The error that most people make is thinking that the computer's manufacturer is the only place to get a battery and they end up paying more than they have to. However, when the see that the manufacturer charges an extremely high price for their laptop batteries they start to look elsewhere.

Sometimes new laptop batteries may behave erratically until they have been charged or discharged after several cycles. New laptop batteries are shipped out to customer in a discharged condition or with very low capacity and must be drained before use. I suggest at least a twelve hour charge but first refer to the owner's manual for charging instructions.

Rechargeable laptop batteries should be cycled (fully charged and then fully discharged) three to five times initially to make them reach full capacity. New laptop batteries are hard for the device to charge; they have never been fully charged and are therefore "unformed". Sometimes the device's charger will stop charging a new laptop battery before it is fully charged. If this happens, remove the laptop battery from the device and then reinsert it. The charge cycle should begin again. This may happen several times during the first laptop battery charge.

Try to fully discharge and fully charge the laptop battery according to the following instructions.

1. Install the battery in your laptop and power on until it powers off. In this situation, the laptop battery is fully discharged.

2. Then fully charge the laptop battery.

3. Fully charge and fully discharge the laptop battery or "cycle" at least five times to condition the laptop battery into performing at full capacity.

Targus APM12US External Battery

Purchasing an external laptop battery requires careful selection to ensure the safe operation of your computer due to the wide ranging electrical requirements found in laptops, notebooks and tablet PCs. Critical consideration must be given to the voltage (V) and amperage (A) ratings of the computer when selecting an external battery. Another specification to consider in the purchase of an external battery is the watt-hours (W-Hr) since a higher W-Hr rating will power the computer for a longer period of time than one with a lower rating. However, while the voltage and amperage selection is critical in the selection process, the watt-hour rating is generally more of a convenience criteria.

You may be able to find the laptop manufacturer's electrical specs for your computer from their web site or in your user's manual, but the easiest and most readily way to obtain that is to examine the charger that came with your notebook. You should easily be able to read the label on the OEM charger and find the voltage and amperage specs on it. Many, if not most, external batteries have voltage outputs that are switch selectable for two or more voltages. You will need to select an external battery that has a voltage output that matches your laptop's voltage requirement. Voltage specs of +/-1 will generally also work with your computer system, but you should check with the battery supplier if you need more information. You will also need to give careful consideration to the amperage spec of both your laptop and the external lapop battery. The external battery will need to be rated higher than the laptop's spec for amps or it won't be able to supply enough current to power the computer.

The basis of this article derived from the simple fact that I needed to find a replacement laptop battery for my wife's Dell Inspiron 1501. It had been operating for increasingly shorter periods of time while on battery power and the battery utility program began displaying an error message that the laptop's battery needed to be replaced. Since it had been originally equipped with the standard 6 cell battery, I was going to take this opportunity to replace it with a 9 cell battery to extend its' run time. Consequently, the search for a new notebook battery consisted of several components: find the specs for the extended life Dell Battery; determine the sources for both an OEM and generic replacement battery; and find the best price for a replacement laptop battery. The quest had begun!

The first thing to do is to find the options and specifications for the replacement notebook battery. The Dell site indicates that two battery options are available, a 53 WHr battery and an 85 WHr battery. The price difference was not that much and we wanted to gain some more operating time from the new battery, so we narrowed our search criteria for the larger capacity battery. Dell lists the specs for the extended battery as 85 WHr, 9 cell, 11.1 Volts and a maximum recharge of about 500 cycles. It is a lithium-ion battery that has Dell Partner Nos. of either 312-0428 or 312-0460 and they indicate that the Manufacturer Part No. for it is TD347. It is sold directly by Dell for $154.99. The overall sentiment by reviewers of this battery was negative due to its' short life and high price point. We also found that the original 6-cell battery had a short life relative to other laptops and batteries we had used and cringed at paying the amount that Dell wanted since it was approximately 25-30% of the cost of the laptop when my wife purchased it. We would have reluctantly purchased this battery from Dell if there were no other options available....but there were.

I was given the assignment of finding a replacement battery for the Inspiron. I googled 'replacement laptop batteries' and found a number of sites that I visited. Probably half of them carried either the Dell OEM battery or a generic battery and since the OEM batteries were the same price or higher price than the Dell site I decided that the best buy would be in a generic battery. In about 30 minutes I found six generic batteries that had similar specs to the Dell battery. The average normalized price for the 9-cell generic laptop battery was $88.12. The price for two of these batteries was significantly lower than the others due to the fact that they had lower mAH specs so these prices were multiplied by a ratio of 'target mAH'/'supplied mAH' where the 'target mAH' was the Dell spec and the 'supplied mAH' was the rating of the offered battery. After normalization, the shipped price (these sites offered free shipping) ranged from $76.85 to $99.00. Based on the average price I found that we were able to save 43% over the Dell price by simply searching the internet for 30 minutes. Not bad at all!

Laptop Battery Price Comparison By Shopping Site

The last stop I took to look for a replacement battery for the notebook computer was eBay. I searched the laptop battery category for 'Inspiron 1501' and was surprised at the number of results that were displayed in the five minutes that it took me to navigate over to eBay, find the right category and input the search terms. Most of the results were 'Buy It Now' auctions with free shipping, and in the one case when shipping was not free I added it to the BIN cost. Again, two of the six batteries that I quickly identified were of a lower mAH rated so I normalized the price as I had done previously when shopping at the web stores. The eBay prices ranged from $54.99 to $63.05 with an average normalized price of $59.37 for a generic Dell Inspiron extended life battery with 9 cells. As Phil Rizzuto would have said - Holy Cow! That's a 32% savings over the online shops and a whopping 62% savings over the Dell price. The chart graphically displays the average normalized price for of this extended life battery by shopping site.

I looked over the eBay sellers' ratings and the warranties that they offered and sent the preferred eBay link to my wife. She immediately purchased the laptop battery and has been using it her Inspiron for six months now and has been happy with the purchase. So do a little research when shopping for a replacement laptop battery and investigate your options. You may be able to buy two or three generic batteries for the cost of one OEM battery. The price savings will depend a variety of factors, including the availablity and demand of the battery that you need to replace, but the half hour that it takes you to do the research may save you a considerable amount of money.