Dell no longer has a SINGLE laptop that supports modular bay batteries?

My Precision 4300 and Latitude D830 both had a modular bay that supported these batteries. They are extremely useful, as they're hot swappable and provide a boatload more power. I have 4 of them and can have power through any plane trip.

Looking at the models that Dell sells now, I can't seem to find any that would support modular batteries. It seems there is still a modular bay but no battery that would fit it.

Has Dell gone completely insane? That was the #1 feature that kept me with Dells all these years. Does anyone know anything about why they're not and if they will be supported again?

Thanks.

 

I too am a fan of such things, but I have to add that the only reason Dell would have stopped offering this on their models was if the take up was not large.

 

Take up? Meaning their profit margin?

 

No, meaning people actually buying them - though this will be related to profit margin no doubt.

 

/sigh. So the only laptop with modular support is W500 from Lenovo right now?

 

There are indeed no current Dell computers that support modular by batteries, especially not those made for the D-Series. They've got a slice battery you can use, but I do agree that it's way more cumbersome, expensive, and generally not practical.

 

Dell doesn't have modular bay batteries for one of the reasons I suspect below, although there may be others as well.

a) They weren't cost-effective. While it's nice to have instant hot-swap abilities, DELL isn't a company that particularly looks to put user-friendly features in unless they (DELL) can make a profit. If you bought a laptop with a modular bay, and bought it with a swappable Floppy drive, DVD Drive, and Battery, you have 3 "peripherals" that are run completely internally and on a 3.5" profile. Such peripherals tend to be less expensive to make due to the reduced amount of parts needed (such parts don't have their own cooling devices, rather they share whatever the computer has available). Having owned 2 modular bay DELL's (an inspiron 600m and a GEN I XPS notebook), I can also vouch for it being a great feature, the ability to go from "multimedia friendly" to "gets 6 hours in class" without requiring anything external is a beautiful thing. However, external drives for laptops, and external drives that most people purchase from DELL, are more expensive usually due to the need for fans to cool these rapidly spinning HDDs, and simply because most external HDDs bought are significantly larger than anything that could be shoe-horned into a laptop. If a company sees it can make a bigger profit selling an external drive than to just put a 2nd internal in, then the bean-counters will simply advise the person at charge of these new trends and use them to make maximum money. Note though that this concept as a "good idea" gets cloudy in particular with high-end rigs designed primarily for workstation or gaming use. However the amount of precision and alienware machines sold that could USE this feature, odds are, is paled by the number of inspiron / studio / mini / latitude machines for whom, due to their lower-power and storage needs, simply wouldn't need such extra HDD / battery inside of it enough for many consumers to justify such a purchase. Also the modular bay has to be able to dynamically know whether it has a disc drive, a HDD, or a battery in it, and switch on and off the appropriate functions. I wouldn't be surprised if this had at some point a high-enough failure rate for the bean-counters to kick in "damage control through elimination of this feature" mode.

b) If you look at dell systems in the past 2 to 3 years, they have evolved from looking clunky and squarish, to models that would not look entirely out of place at MoMA. DELL isn't trying just to build "value laptops" but ones that can entice everyone from the hardcore workstation user, to the family person who solely uses a laptop to watch youtube and upload family photos for emails. Most of their laptops have gone through a size-shrink in not only internals, but also profile. The CPUs use less power, GPUs (unless it's a high-end quadro or an Alienware with GTX's), the screens are increasingly moving towards LED technology, and an increasing number of storage devices are becoming SSDs. Each of these use less power than what DELL had offered even 18 months ago, and because of these combined advancements, battery life has gone up to where for most people, a 2nd battery would be overkill. Other laptops DELL makes (adamo) take the thin / aesthetic view to its logical conclusion and there simply isn't any room for a 2nd battery. Find a picture of the guts of a small (15 or under ") dell such as an inspiron 14/13, the mini, or an adamo, and it's not particularly conducive to try and shove another battery in there, or to make the swap drive viable. Even the later-generation "swap" drive the m1710 had, where you could unscrew a "locking screw" and try to pull a DVD drive out to put in a Blu-Ray drive, necessitated that the drive be of a certain thickness so the screw could hold the drive in place. What thinness does is make it more conducive to put in a 1-shot drive of a slot-load, that to most consumers looks prettier (a cleaner, no-door look) and uses less energy because there is no door to have to slingshot out.

c) Most people are satisfied with having one big battery, even if it sticks out than having 2 small batteries that can work in tandem. Perhaps it's aesthetics, or the fact most "extended life" batteries lift the tail of the computer up to help with cooling, but the market has shifted away from carrying more batteries than needed, except with high-powered mobile computers. People don't want to be bothered with having to swap a battery out every few hours, and would just rather have one battery to have to watch over and charge. If you look at these extended life batteries, while they carry a premium, work has been done to maximize the integration of these into the computer so they obstruct the general look of the computer as little as possible while serving the desired purpose (more battery life). It's like having a 2nd battery with you, but it comes pre-plugged into the first battery, ergo only one battery to charge, but the life of 2 batteries. It's also more environmentally friendly to make what amounts to 2 batteries internally, share one casing than have 2 separate casings as less plastic and wiring is needed to make it work. While on a small scale (a few computers) the difference isn't much, companies such as DELL sell laptops in the orders of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, per year. Those extra few inches of wire and extra bits of plastic, when multiplied in such a magnitude, do add up and DELL, along with other laptop companies, don't want to be seen as environmental pariahs, but rather "environmentally conscious". Saying you only need one battery looks more "conscious", even if the battery is bigger than normal, than saying you can have 2 in there at once. Humans in this day and age look for "green" products increasingly (which is why apple computers are notorious for "earth-friendly" and refused the Gen 1 Intel SSDs) that won't cause long-lasting effects on the planet.

Your idea is a good one, and at one time was everywhere, but times change and so do what people want. The w500 by lenovo has the dual battery ability, but most companies make do either compressing extra cells into the same size or using a battery that protrudes from the back. Part of it is to save build costs, and part of it is for image, and part of it is because there's simply no room for the modular bay. You can either get the cumbersome "slice" or find a model with a slice, or if you're lucky find one that has an extended life of the same general profile of the normal battery... but the times have changed and people no longer really tolerate the idea of having to monitor 2 batteries at once as they used to. Chalk most of it up to money, reduced power-needs in components, and a desire by big companies to be quasi-green.

Jason

 

It is probably because the new E-Series modular bay is simply too thin to accommodate a battery with reasonable WHr.

Wouldn't a slice battery cover your needs?

 

depends, some people don't want a slice battery as it detracts from the clean aesthetics of many modern dells. But DELL sees it as the slice is the surrogate for dual batteries and thus is content with trying to make a quasi aesthetic battery. IMHO, the slice is hideous, and I side with the OP's desires.

 

I wouldn't mind picking up a modular to supplement my 9-Cell on my D630. The modular bay certainly was a (albiet small) reason i bought it.

 

I have a few of these that are useless to me now. Bought them before and now they're completely unsupported. I'm furious at Dell. Could sell on eBay or craiglist, I guess. Where are you located?

As far as W500, I just decided to go for it but then looked up Lenovo's return policy and that quickly made me rethink.

"Lenovo will accept the return of unopened product provided that within 7 days of the product being delivered you obtain a Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) by calling the Lenovo Return Centre (LRC) on 1300 557 073 - Option 2.

Lenovo reserves the right to charge a 20% restocking fee for returns of unopened product.

You must deliver all the product, documentation and accessories intact and in their unopened original packaging along with the RMA, shipping label and a copy of the invoice to the address advised by the LRC within 10 days of the date of the RMA."​

What. The. !@*$?