Reliable place to buy laptop battery

DonnyDave

Can anyone recommend a place to buy a battery for an Acer Aspire 5622 laptop?

I'm concerned that there are many cheap batteries out there, and I don't want to take any chances, what with the possibility of fire risk and so on.

fwor

DonnyDave wrote: »

with the possibility of fire risk and so on.

IMO the fire risk thing has been hyped. Most of the problem batteries were originals, supplied by Sony and others, so you're probably not at any greater risk with any "non-original" battery pack.

If you go with one of the UK-based companies you will at least be covered by our DSR legislation. In reality, most supposedly UK-based suppliers of cheap battery packs seem to be Chinese/HK based, but if you choose one that's been around for a while you'll probably be Ok.

Whichever way you look at it, you will almost certainly get better value for money than with an "original" battery...

diable

Buy one from Acer.

diable

........................

DonnyDave

diable wrote: »

Buy one from Acer.

Acer website shows only AC power supplies are available for this model. :sad:

DonnyDave

What about battery voltage? The current battery I have is 11.1V, but many ones allegedly compatible with my laptop are 14.8V.

DonnyDave

One example is PSA Parts:

http://www.psaparts.co.uk/laptop-notebook/acer/aspire-5622wlmi-battery-adapter-charger.html

They also trade (under licence) as Duracell Direct. Interestingly, the 2-Power battery shown at the top of this page is on sale at Duracell Direct for an extra £4.48.

Anyway, PSA Parts has OEM batteries, most of which are 11.1V (and quite a bit more expensive!) but one is 14.8V, but only 2400mAh and is more expensive than the higher capacity lower voltage OEM models. How come?

forgotmyname

Supply & demand or better quality? Same reason you pay more for a VW than a VW clone which maybe better built these days.


If your laptop currently has a 11.1v battery it wont take kindly to having 14.8 volts shoved through it.

fwor

DonnyDave wrote: »

most of which are 11.1V (and quite a bit more expensive!) but one is 14.8V

This may just be that they are quoting a different part of the spec - I've seen this before with laptop batteries, where the higher voltage is what the batteries charge at, and the lower voltage is what the pack presents to the laptop.

In general, they make battery packs to a higher capacity by adding more cells in parallel, so the voltage should be the same irrespective of capacity.

If you want to be sure, I'd check via their Customer Services contact, though.

DonnyDave

I've removed the label on the battery and can see there is two rows of 3 cells. There is also room for two more cells on the side where the terminals are.



I have also looked at the manual and under "Power subsystem" it states "71 W 8-cell or 59.2 W 8-cell Li-ion battery pack".

So they shipped it with a 6 cell battery but advise 8 cell in the manual.

Clearly the 6 cell is 11.1V (two sets of 3 cells in series in parallel) and 8 cell is 14.8V (two sets of 4 cells in series in parallel), each cell being 3.7V.

DonnyDave

I am starting to believe now that it (the laptop) has been designed to accept 11.1V (six cell) and 14.8V (eight cell) batteries. Probably to keep the weight down, as well as to cut the manufacturer's costs down.

But what about the capacity? Six cells totalling 4000mAh means 666mAh each. So with eight in the battery, why do they usually only total 4400mAh, and not 5333mAh?