Can new laptop batteries pay for themselves?

Good Decision

Its been a year and I configured your test system at Dell.com for aound $1,600. So, I would say you made a great decision. Nice article.

Battery analysis

This is a very good, thoughtful, intelligent analysis of batteries and cost/benefit. I rarely see this kind of intelligent, flame-free discussion anywhere online.

Okay, seems like the price of the batteries is at a "thinking" point. As in "They are so expensive, I'm thinking of replacing the hardware."

We don't replace a car because the battery has gone bad. But if that battery cost 1/6 of the price of a new car ($3000 or so), we'd probably start thinking about buying a new car.

One thing I'd like to add is a discussion on how to make the batteries last longer. If you can charge a battery to max capacity 300 times before it loses usefulness, then the cost per charge is $1. But can we get that cost down to say, 50 cents by doubling the life and number of charges?

You already said to avoid hot and cold extremes. I also believe that a trickle charge causes a fuller, longer-lasting, less damaging charge than a fast charge. I think this is, at least in part, because faster charging causes more heat in the batteries.

Should we let the batteries drain fully before charging? I've heard different theories, including manufacturers of Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries say that some charge in a battery is necessary to charge the rest of it. I'm not certain how laptop lithium ion batteries work.

-- Brian Y.

economics

Buying the replacement batteries certainly makes good economic sense...that is, as long as the laptop is functional. Laptops being what they are, and how long they are warranteed for, it could fail right after you receive the batteries...then you have an inoperative laptop, and two brand new batteries. simple things like replacing power jacks can be expensive (real service outlets usually replace the motherboard)or a LCD screen. The economic decision would then bring in the high cost of laptop repairs vs the cost of a new laptop.
I'd look real close at the new dual-core laptops with their better screens, larger hard drives, faster dvd burners, more ram and...a new warranty and see if that makes more sense than maintaining the current one over time.
(I fix computers as a sideline. People get attached to specific ones even in light of the incredible price deals available. I understand this, and point it out to customers...and I still get work, even on laptops. I think they appreciate my honesty.)

consumable(kən-sū'mə-bəl): That may be depleted or worn out by u

I think an economist (at least an accountant) would think of your batteries as a 'consumable'. If they cost $320 and last 24 months, then the monthly cost of running the laptop is about $13 per month. The original battery cost was 'built into' the cost of the laptop. Another is the electricity you buy to run it and charge the batteries.

The issue re: buying a new laptop might be that the newer one could be much more efficient and not use as much in 'energy dollars'.

You missed one basic question

Mike, does your current laptop meet your needs, other than battery life, now and for the foreseeable (1-2 years?) future.

From your comments I'd guess that you are still satisfied with it, so it seems reasonable to spend $300 to keep it running for another 6 months to a year or even two. (I say 6 months since MS has said it will stop offering new PC/Laptops with XP installed by June of next year).

Since "Moore's Law" is still in place, in 1.5 years processing power will have doubled. Which I guess would bring the CPU price down enough to bump up the RAM to an amount that will reasonably support Vista.

What the heck, why not go for an even simpler calculation. Spend the $300 now, keep the extra $1800 to buy the same (or better) laptop in 6-12 months time.

An alternate way of checking your original idea would be to go "analog". Check back issues of paper magazines, should be easy enough since you work for a magazine. Dell has lots of paper advertising that includes base prices and configurations. Hey what the heck, why not get "lazy " and talk to your advertising department, they probably have the original ads on file (bypassing searching magazines).

Good Luck...

I think your experiment

I think your experiment model is good if your assuming the laptop is going to sit in the closet the whole year.
If you want to analyze your purchase in terms of economics- you have to look at utility.

There's a really basic way you can determine if your purchase was worth it. When your batteries die after about an hour of use, ask yourself how much you would be willing to spend right then and there to be able to use your computer another hour. Is it $1, $5, $20..?
If you're in the middle of writing an interesting article you'd probably spend more than if, say, you were messing around on youtube.

Then basically add it all up. (And this is all done while ignoring the time value of money).

If you work enough on the laptop to kill the life on 2 batteries, I'd say $320 can pay for itself.

Back to the Future KISS: Tandy Model 200/100

My daughter found my old Tandy Model 200 in the garage a few weeks ago. I put 4 new rechargeable AA batteries in it and up it came! After 23 years this thing still works. Hmmm... boot time... about a second... shutdown... faster. Storage? I transfer my files to my PC with a 747 Byte executable called "TEENY.CO". I actually carry it around now to try to work on writing. When I'm writing I'm not distracted by formatting, misspellings, gui, popups, or anything else. I don't know how long it will go between sets of charged batteries because IT IS STILL GOING! Is this thing ancient, hard to see and function poor? Absolutely. But there is NO modern replacement. And the keyboard is wonderful.

http://www.club100.org/

Timeframe?

Why one year? Why not six months, or two years? I don't understand what is so special about the price of the laptop after "period X" that would make it comparable to the possession of new batteries for the same timeframe.

look around for batteries

I just upgraded my batteries for a business-class Lenovo Thinkpad. I paid a fraction of OEM retail, but got OEM brand-new batteries. Lenovo sells their 9-cell super capacity battery for $139 on their website. I got a sealed, new replacement on ebay for $55. If you're going to do a fair analysis of this situation, you really need to do a better search for your product (if you're interested in saving money).

To be fair, I have not checked ebay for that laptop's batteries so not sure if they are widely available. Everything else is though, so I wouldn't doubt that they are too.

Can new laptop batteries pay for themselves?

One factor which you need to put in the equation is 'time':
How long will it take you to set-up your laptop, transfer the files, get used to the various idiosyncrasies of the new product?
That takes a while, at least for me, and if you are otherwise happy with the performance of your laptop I would not switch, or at least figure a way to valuate your time to continue with your one year test.

Markus