How do you know if a battery will fit your laptop?

Lenovo G710 Laptop | Entry-Level Laptop | Lenovo (US)

How do I get batteries for this? Lenovo G710

In general how do you know if a battery will fit your laptop?

 

To get batteries for a Lenovo system, you go to Lenovo's website, hit the accessories tab, and use their battery finder. You can either buy the battery directly from them or you can search Amazon for the part number and possibly get it a bit cheaper there.

You know a battery will fit your computer if it has been designed for it. Your best bet is to always get genuine batteries from the manufacturer, but even if you get cheap off-brand batteries, they should say that they are compatible with your system. If the battery documentation does not specifically state that it is compatible with your system, don't get it.

 

And if you get a third party, make sure it is designed for your laptop! If the battery uses an identifier circuit then just because it fits does not mean it will work. The laptop needs to be told by the battery that it is for said model of laptop.

 

I would not buy a third party laptop battery unless you have an aging system and are trying to just "get by". Nine times out of ten third party batteries will die within a year. They're just not made of the same quality or density batteries as the OEM counterpart. There's a reason they're a lot cheaper, they just use cheaper quality parts and for a battery, especially if you use it frequently, will just kill it that much more quickly, if it even has the same battery life to begin with.

 

HTwing, thats generally been my thought. I heard so many things about power supplies and batteries not working with dell laptops because of all the methods of hardware identification dell used. However I found a place on ebay that makes their own battery packs for a large assortment of laptops and they had a new battery for my 6 year old laptop for 15 bucks, figured I couldn't lose (The original battery went red defective a year after purchase and it had been running with no battery since). Was pleasantly surprised to find it works great.

 

Third-party batteries vary a lot in quality. I went with a Rayovac third-party battery, a name-brand American company, which was not nearly as cheap as an eBay battery, but was still significantly less than an official Dell one. Three years later, it's still chugging along - with less battery life than when new, but actually doing at least as well as the Dell original. A friend with the same model got a cheap eBay import, and it worked great for a week, and then failed completely. But sometimes you can get lucky with a cheap import.

You may be able to find a compatible battery at your local battery shop. It won't be as cheap as eBay, but it might be significantly less than Lenovo, and if it fails early, you'll have somewhere to return it to (though be sure to read the warranty and such).

 

yeah a lot of the newer lenovo batteries have chips which 3rd party batteries don't have so it won't be recognized

 

In fact, third party batteries can be just as reliable as OEM batteries. That said, there is something to consider when you purchase any product a brand name on it.

Brands, for the most part, are your assurance of quality, That is, its to a company's best interest to provide reliable products if it is to stay in business. They tend to not put their name on products that are of questionable quality, or that they know will fail. In the event that they do fail, reputable companies are also better at honoring their warranty.

Again, it does not mean that a third party battery manufacturer will not honor his warranty, just that you would be taking a greater chance that he will. This is really the only true constant and difference among them.

It may also interest you to know that ALL batteries regardless of brand are made in China (with a few in Korea). The difference is mostly in the cell distribution. And to a lessor extent, the quality of the materials.

As to your original question how do you know if the battery will fit? You don't know, But you hope that their product register is accurate to the manufactures specification. I've returned two batteries so far, that were not.