Re: [ALUG] Are Netbooks worth it?

[stevea]

rubbsdecvik wrote:
> With the way my Thinkpad T43's battery life meter shrinks faster than
> an ice cube in the Sahara,
FWIW I had my T42 battery cells replaced here for only $50.
http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/ibm/thinkpad_T40.phtml
It seems to be a one-man garage shop, but they do good work.
Reliable if slow.

I've stared at UMPC specs for a few months but I have nothing brilliant to
say on the topic, but let me address a different problem.

Laptops use Li-ion batteries and the absolutely best way to reduce the
battery life is to leave it fully charged in a warm laptop for extended
periods.

If you have it plugged in 80% of the time I suggest you try to drain
charge level around 40% and then yank the battery till needed.
Put it in the fridge (in a ziplock to keep it clean) if you don't need
it for
very extended periods. ((Never let it reach feezing!))

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/

[Donald Parsons]

As an example of what this buys you. I have done this since I got
my T43. And after more than 3 years the original battery still has
over 100% capacity as indicated by the Linux battery status readout.
Although I just have the battery sitting on the shelf. I would
guess that using fridge and charge level in 33--40% range would
almost stop aging.

When new, I think my battery showed about 108% capacity and
now about 104%.

When portability needed, I try to charge to 87%, but usually miss
and go to 100%. Fully charging causes rapid aging. And heat makes
it even worse.

Don

[Terry Morris]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 5:26 AM, stevea <steve-a...@adelphia.net> wrote:

rubbsdecvik wrote:
> With the way my Thinkpad T43's battery life meter shrinks faster than
> an ice cube in the Sahara,

FWIW I had my T42 battery cells replaced here for only $50.
http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/ibm/thinkpad_T40.phtml
It seems to be a one-man garage shop, but they do good work.
Reliable if slow.

<snip it>

Very useful information, Thank You! I have a legacy Dell XP 4100 laptop. I had priced a new battery to replace the original Li-Ion 2500 maH battery at $210. Ouch! I checked your suggested URL battery refill site. If I send my old battery for a refill it will be updated to a 4400 maH battery at $79. Or, I could buy a new 4400 maH battery for $109. Either way at a much better price.

Now if I could find a C Port Replicator and a combo floppy/CDROM drive this laptop would still be useful.

I really appreiciate the useful information, though.

--
Terry L. Morris, KB8AMZ

<registered Linux user #412308 - Puppy Linux 4.0, Linux Mint, SuSe 11.0, & Kubuntu 8.04 LTS>
Org's: North East Ohio - OMIK ARC; Portage County Lodge 70 - F.O.P., NTHS, ALUG, PCARS, National OMIK, ARRL, & QRP-ARCI.