Are aftermarket laptop batteries crap?

I once bought a no name brand li ion battery for my camera as a backup battery. It died quick and became unusable, while the original factory canon battery pack still worked.

Are aftermarket no name laptop batteries the same way?

My GL502 battery has become swollen and lost 50% capacity after just 2 years. It won't charge above 80% , and it shuts down at 27%, so definitely 2 of the 4 cells are fubar.

I'm deciding whether to spend $30 to get a used original Asus battery pulled from laptop, and then storing it till I need it,
or waiting until my current battery is completely unusable, and then spend $50 to get a new aftermarket brand battery.
My only worry is that the aftermarket batteries use cheap lipo cells.

I'm wondering how these laptop battery shops can store these batteries for so many years. Even my 10 year old laptop still has aftermarket batteries for sale.
I can't imagine those batteries holding any charge.

 

Instead of the options you list, take the original battery and have it rebuilt with new cells.

 

you can't rebuild this.

These are lipo batteries.

But there are many aftermarket no name brands that make something equivalent

 

If he aftermarket batteries are significantly less money, they have to make that money up somehow. It's been my experience that third party batteries tend to offer less battery life, wear more quickly and are generally more flaky.

 

I gotten a few after market batteries and they have been good, in many instances aftermarket offers two capacities one original and one increased-get a quality one with the best warranty, cheap is not always better.

 

There is a problem with that logic, however - expensive aftermarket battery can be made from the same low-quality garbage as cheap one, even on the very same plant...

I had positive experience with aftermarket extended batteries. Should be noted that they do lose their capacity noticeably faster than original, at least that was the case with mine.

 

Interesting, I have not had the problem,, quality-- more expensive is the operative words here

 

yeah even though these are all made in china, I can't trust non-oem after the bad experience with my aftermarket canon battery leaking to 0v while being unused, while the original canon battery still holds good charge after almost 5 years unused.

It seems no name replacement batteries come down to <$20 after several years, but amazon reviews are hit or miss. Some even have the same experience as with my camera battery, with their aftermarket laptop battery not being able to hold a charge.

The last thing I want is a money pit battery.

 

Just because something is more expensive, it doesn't mean its of higher quality - in fact my own experiences support this... however with batteries, its usually a hit and miss... especially laptop ones as each manufacturer makes batteries to their own personal 'standards', so third parties matching that could be problematic.
Or it could be the cheaper ones are more prone to failures due to manufacturing defects? I doubt that third parties would go through all the trouble of manufacturing individual batteries for different laptops. I think its more likely the batteries would have been manufactured in the same factory under same conditions, but these cheaper ones might not have passed quality control (so they get offloaded to third party vendors for cheap, or the third parties 'harvest' them as discarded units from landfills and whatnot?).

Pricing is always up to the manufacturer... so they can (and usually do) make it up according to what they see is profitable - its not an indication of quality though (that's a myth that most people were lead to uphold and perpetuate).

 

I would just try to get hold of a new original battery. Its hard to find out if the third party manufacturer uses good cells or not.

 

Original batteries are often prohibitively expensive. \=

 

If its an Asus asusparts/zandparts carries original OEM parts, its EU based, but they can ship to the USA, a new original battery will cost you around 100-120€ plus shipping, send them an email enquiry, send them the full laptop model and the serial number so there are no mistakes.

 

I often see them for under 90usd.....Maybe I was just lucky but often they can be found for cheaper on sites like aliexpress. Ebay tends to be more expensive.