poor battery life

Conor_3

CLLC wrote: »

hi there,

The law states that any product must be durable for a reasonable amount of time.

Not for consumables and a battery is classed as a consumable.

isofa

tom9980 wrote: »

Your wrong in this case because the OP misused the battery it IS their fault it has failed so quickly.

Where does the OP (bomber2) indicate they have mis-used the battery?

tom9980 wrote: »

The fact remains that the OP was not correctly discharging the battery and instead ran the laptop off the mains 99.9% of the time, this improper usage has damaged the battery life.

Where does the OP say that, have I missed a post?!

Unless you are making an assumption based on this:

bomber2 wrote: »

the thing is the battery probably has,nt been used for more than 5 hours in 18 month,does this mean the battery should be in good order or is the fact that its 18 month old mean its seen better days.I would think i should get more than 5 hours use out of it.

Li-Ions are much more robust and don't require charge and discharge cycles like older battery types, I agree they'll function better when not constantly fully charged, but classing this as mis-use is a bit strong, most people who use laptops as a desktop will run them in this manner.

CLLC

WELL, you should contact the office of fair trading or trading standards and let them advise.

Or you can always try

CLLC

WELL, you should contact the office of fair trading or trading standards and let them advise.

Or you can always try contact "DON'T GET DONE, GET DOM":beer:

Leopard

For a new laptop that's used primarily as desktop, permanently connected to a power supply, it's best to buy a used battery cheaply on eBay and put that in it instead. This preserves the integrity of your new battery, which you can then put back into it when you want to use it as a laptop. The old one may not be much good but it will probably get you safely through a brief power cut, from time to time. When it does finally die, buy another cheap one.

Running a laptop without any battery in it at all is not good practice. In some cases the battery plays a role in the conduction and dispersal of heat generated by the computer. Removing it leaves the live terminals exposed and things (including insects) can also get into the computer if the battery bay is left unfilled and exposed.

As to the working life of a laptop battery, and although they use different technologies, think of it like a car battery. Both are consumables and both have finite lives. The law recognises this. If either are abused you are not entitled to a replacement but if they are not, and the battery fails after an unreasonably short period of time, you are.

Unreasonable, in the case of a laptop battery, is probably less than a year.

It's usually regarded as best to store a laptop battery half-charged rather than fully charged.

Here are Apple's views on it:

Reasonable life: http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Battery replacement: http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

Calibrating a battery: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Maximising battery life: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html


You can also buy devices that condition laptop batteries. For example:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BATCAPMB15/

These aren't cheap, nor are they an elixir for everlasting life: every battery will expire eventually. But - since a new laptop battery can cost £100 - they pay for themselves, over time, by preserving the ones you've got.