The "Little" things

Let me just throw this out there since it just happened and is fresh on my mind. The prevailing trend for some years now is for folks to switch to laptops vs. desktops. And as much as I'll disagree with them, and say till the end that the desktop has a place in the modern home, I understand the attraction for most people.

There are a number of downsides to using a laptop and I tonight isn't the time to get into them, but there is one that virtually everyone forgets......and that's the battery. It's assumed that when duty calls, like a good soldier, the battery is always ready to go, but much to the chagrin of the typical owner; that's exactly what's happened. It's gone! Granted, its not the bad old days of the Nickle-Cadmium batteries with their "memory effect", but things aren't as perfect with today's Lithium-Ion cells as manufacturers would like us to believe. No, they aren't nearly as prone to "memory effect", but it isn't perfect either.

First of all, batteries wear out; they all do. Why do you think that regardless of how long your laptop is warranted for, the batteries are covered for no more than one year. The expectation is that under a corporate environment, with a battery cycling (I explain in a minute) every day, a battery should last about a year....give or take. That's because a battery is essentially a contained chemical reaction inside of a little case, and those chemicals can only do their thing so many times before there's no "fizz" left. However, this is mostly an issue for the corporate crowd who use their laptops unplugged on a regular basis.

Secondly, you have the opposite issue: people who keep their computers plugged up ALL THE TIME. You know who you are. You do this in the belief that your trusty laptop will always be ready and the battery will always be new since it's NEVER BEEN USED! OK; yes and no. You have indeed kept the cycles down, but this tends to kill batteries over time, even the Lithium-Ion ones. Quite often, these batteries get to a point where they "go bad" and won't even charge any more.

So, what to do!?! I'm aiming this at the average user who has one or two of these things at home. Here's a few things to remember:

• Brand new batteries must be "cycled" or they will might never be able to reach full capacity. Mean that you need to charge the thing up and run it all the way down (unplugged of course), a couple of times when the machine (or battery) is new.
  
• A "cycle" is where the battery records a process where it discharges and then recharges. Don't ask me how much does it have to go down before it decides that its a "cycle", I don't know. But it looks like, when I carry my machine from one charger to another, it doesn't seem to discharge enough to count as a cycle.
  
• All batteries need to be cycled periodically. Think of it like giving the battery a little exercise. For my home machines, I tend to do this once every week or two. This is enough to keep the number of cycles down, while keeping the battery from dying.
• In the end, ALL BATTERIES must be replaced. No escaping it (like death and taxes), it's going to happen.
  

So what should you like-minded frugal types do? In case you haven't priced the things, the manufacturers tend to charge over $100 each for these things! I just checked and mine that you see above is $150! OK, here's what I do:

• Keep the ones that I have on an exercise routine, so they do die and early death.
• Always buy one of more at my leisure, so I'm not caught in an emergency and end up paying the $150 because I'm panicked. More on this later.
• Keep a "bad" one in the machine at home when it's plugged up 90% of the time, so if one is going to die, it's the bad one. Anyway, it's at home, so all I really need from it is 5 or 10 minutes anyway. It's like having a built-in UPS.
• Every once in a while, rotate in one of the batteries that are in storage so they'll get a little exercise as well. I'm not fanatical and put them in the freezer though.

So what's the story on buying batteries....other than; don't pay $150 from the OEM. I also then to not buy the generic ones that you see all over eBay listed as "for" Brand X, Model Y. No, I've never had a terrible, melting laptop episode, but I'd prefer to minimize the chances of that ever happening as well. What I do do is still go to eBay, but buy batteries that are specifically listed as OEM, or Genuine. If you can get a new one cheap that way, then jump on it. I have on occasion found new ones pretty cheap, but its rare.

I buy used ones. Simple as that. I know, that that's a "crap-shoot", but I've done it a lot and my experience has been that you'll come out ahead on the average. Yes, in fact, I've gotten a few that have come in with some ungodly number of cycles and is all but useless, but most cases, they will be fine. My most recent case is a great example. I wanted another 6-Cell battery for my beloved everyday companion ThinkPad X300. That battery has 300+ cycles on it and the capacity is down to about 2/3s of its original. Although, fine for around the house, not great for traveling. I also didn't want to put the 3-Cell battery into play since they are rare (read hard to find and expensive) and I want to keep it in good shape for those occasions where I need the machine to be super thin and super light. Yes, yes, I know it's "gilding the Lilly", given that it's already at 3lbs and just slightly thicker than the MacBook Air, but hey.... Anyway, after scanning through all the eBay ads for real X300 batteries, I found one that was going for $26 with free shipping. So I jumped on it! It came yesterday!

After it got fully charged up and I checked the battery info, here is what I found. It has 58 cycles on it, and it had 100% of the original capacity. It was $124 less than a new one from Lenovo! At that, I can afford to make a few mistakes and still come out ahead. This isn't even the most spectacular case. I once bought an T4x/R5x battery, that was new with 0 cycles on it. I think, mostly these things come from surplus outfits who just take the machine that get apart and sell of the parts. They have so much stuff, they don't bother to check for condition.