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Today's enhanced lithium ion batteries can often power a notebook for as long as 6 to 8 hours on a single charge. But after a few years, all batteries  suffer the same fate. They die. When that time comes, you're in for a rude awakening because the replacement cost will run as much as 15 to 20% of the laptop's purchase price. This has spawned an entire industry of aftermarket batteries that are designed to be compatible with your original OEM battery. The savings can be dramatic with good replacement batteries costing 50-70% less. But before you head over to Amazon.com to snag a cheap laptop battery, there's a few things you need to watch out for.
Quality
First, you need to understand that all notebook batteries are not created equal. Historically, batteries made in Japan tended to be much higher quality and many OEM replacements are still made there. What's the difference? Everything from the lithium ion powder that is used in the battery's cathode to the design of the battery cells themselves to the quality of the manufacturing process. What that means is that although batteries might look very similar and have the same specs and "ingredients", you might find that one battery lasts 4 hours while the next runs out of power after 30 minutes and they're both from the same manufacturer. Good manufacturers will consistently have charges that will last a long time. The three biggest producers of lithium ion batteries for laptops are China, Japan, and South Korea. Virtually no batteries are produced in the U.S. The greatest variation seems to come out of China where most of the aftermarket batteries are made at ultra low cost. Does that mean that you can't get a good battery made in China? No, you will need to do some comparison shopping before you buy. Remember, a low quality battery not only reduces the amount of charge time, it also impacts the number of charge cycles you get before it dies.
Power and Energy Specs
Your replacement battery should have information on how many watt hours (WH) it has. Watt hours are a unit of energy and the bigger the number, the better for your laptop performance. The watt hours are really dependent on the amp-hours the battery has as the voltage will need to be constant for your laptop. The basic formula is WH=Voltage * AmpHours. In the case of my laptop the voltage has to be 11.1Volts and 5.1 AH which when you multiply together gets 56WH. If you get a replacement battery that has say 40WH then you are likely to see significantly lower performance. The replacement battery that I settled on had 49WH which is about 88% of the original spec and after the initial charge, it indicated that it would last for 3:30 minutes. One word of caution, whatever is stated on the battery is only as good as the manufacturer making it. Certainly some less reputable battery manufacturers fake this number in order to appear to be exact OEM replacements. So buyer beware. I used BatteryMon software to calculate that the battery actually had 48WH which was within a few percentage points of what was advertised.
Now many of you will want an exact time for how long your notebook will run and it's impossible to determine that. The amount of power you draw is going to depend on what you are doing and how hard the CPU and hard drive are cranking. A reasonable analogy would be to ask how many hours will my car run if I fill the tank with 10 gallons of gas. It all depends on how fast you are driving and under what conditions.
Cycle Time
Just because your battery performs well after you charge it the first time doesn't mean its going to last. If your battery only lasts an hour on the initial charge, it's easy to call up the merchant and get a replacement or refund. Lithium ion laptop batteries generally will hold charge for 500 cycles, or about 2 to 3 years for most of us, but their performance starts deteriorating from the moment that they come off the assembly line. So if you have a battery that has been sitting on a hot shelf in some warehouse for 12 months, you aren't going to get very good performance over its life. Low quality batteries will start to show significantly shorter run times after as little as 50 cycles which invariably corresponds to the normal return period for most retaliers. Unfortunately, there is really no way to know how many cycles your battery will run before it retires.
The Retailer
The single most important decision you can make is who you buy your battery from. Look for a retailer that has at least 5 plus years of experience. There are many retailers on eBay or Amazon that you will do well to avoid. If you your battery at Amazon, you may be unpleasantly surprised by the cheap offerings that come with no ratings and dealing with less than dependable vendors. If some retailer is selling a Dell battery that usually goes for $145 for $20, use your head, sometimes you do get what you pay for. Just be aware, the retailers in this area are not your 5 star rating types.
A few of the more notable retailers that have been in business for a long time include: Laptops For Less or Laptop Battery Express. Those that want a physical retailer can go to Batteries Plus but note that the savings will be significantly less. Whichever retailer you go with, make sure that they have a 30 day return policy and a 1 year warranty. You want to make sure that if your battery is DOA then you won't have a problem getting a refund or replacement and if it fails after 70 cycles after 9 months you can get a new one.
Next for my experience.
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