Question about 4 cell vs 6 cell battery!

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 17 laptop and I love it. My only concern and its not even a big one is it came with a 4 cell battery. I tested it tonight and in high performance mode with max brightness the battery lasted 2 hrs and 20 minutes doing real world computing. Dell offers a 6 cell battery for $119, how much more battery life can I expect if I bought the 6 cell battery?

Greg

 

I do not know but, i lean towards maybe an extra 30 minutes. high performance mode just kills battery life. nothing short of car batter can really handle high performance mode. What ever you do don't a buy a Chinese knock off 6 cell, that will only last a month.

 

They use the four cells in series. With the 6 cell battery they use 3 cells in series. In my experience with Dell 4 and 6 cell batteries on the same computer, they come close to doubling the battery life. Which makes sense, because there are 50% more cells and each cell will put out a much lower current.

Where do you think Dell's contractors find the cells for their battery packs?

 

Speaking from experience, I got a 12cell extended for my hdx18 and 6 months later it's sitting at 25% wear, so I get roughly 2 hours out of it which is comparable to the stock 8 cell directly from HP. But well, I only paid 30 dollars for it.

 

Well, with OEM batteries, you're trading off some more cash in exchange for a better chance of the battery working as expected (battery life, longevity). With a knock-off (be it Chinese, Taiwanese, whatever), it's a bit more of a gamble, but you save a bit more cash in return. Could get lucky and get the same batteries that OEMs buy from the factories (sans OEM label), could get unlucky and get one that dies in a few months, or something in between. Just know your risk-benefit for each option and choose which one you feel more comfortable with.

 

If I plan on using my computer quite a bit on battery, or keep my laptop another couple years, I'd buy OEM. If you have an old laptop with a dead battery and just want one "just in case" or for occasional short stints on battery, I'd buy the cheap knockoff. Knockoff batteries you never know how fresh they are, if they used "refurbished" cells, etc. OEM batteries are usually rotated after a short amount of time, and are relatively fresh.

 

At work we have sold the Chinese ebay batters before, you know the ones for 25 bucks, on top of that i have bought some before and the wear level is insanely high. nothing compared to a quality battery vendor or OEM seller.

They both come from china but, one is of higher quality.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I am going to pick up the Dell 6 cell in the next couple of weeks.

 

You could make a very accurate guess of how much more battery life you'd get w/ the 6-cell , if you knew the Whr rating of the batteries.

And I'm absolutely agreed on the point that only OEM batteries are worth purchasing.

 

The 6 cell battery life is for 3 hours 30 minutes.Simple because the 4 cell battery life is 2 hour 20 minutes then add 1 hour extra.Its mean 2 cell consumption is 1 hour.

 

When it comes to batteries, i've had best experience with oem. The knockoffs are just too poorly made.