Looking for a good deal on a 9 cell battery T61p

I have some conferences coming up and I'd like to pick up a 9 cell battery to replace my old 6 cell. My computer says it can only hold a charge for 1.5 hours... which is pretty pathetic.

I'm wary about amazon.com batteries, unless someone has a recommendation.

I know of the lenovo outlet too, but right now their 9 cell battery is $125! I stumbled upon some threads on this site from just a few months ago and these batteries were apparently selling for WAY cheaper.
Lenovo Outlet - Refurbished ThinkPad T/R/W/Z/SL Series 9 Cell Li-Ion Battery - Discounted Laptops, Cheap Laptops, Refurbished Laptops, Discounted Desktops, Cheap Desktops, Refurbished Desktops
(just to check, this battery is for a 15.4 inch t61p right?)

If anyone could suggest a reliable and cheaper source for a 9 cell battery I would greatly appreciate it. Or if the outlet is the way to go, give me your advice. Thanks.

 

I'd buy this.

 

Ordered. Thanks for the help. I'll post back with how well the battery performs. Still, this is $100 cheaper than buying from lenovo, and $50 cheaper than their outlet store.

I went ahead and ordered an ultrabay battery too. It's time I start using this notebook outside of my apartment.

 

Anyone know of a good cheap generics if such a thing exists?

 

there's always a risk buying those.

 

I've read they might only give you 3hrs of life or drain much quicker, but by risk, do you mean that it could damage the internals of the computer itself?

 

My experience with third party batteries is they don't last as long and wear more quickly.

 

This ^^^^

I have purchased third party batteries in the past and they are utter garbage, teaches me for that awesome Ebay deal I thought I discovered.

 

I received this battery in the mail today, and it looks to be an offiicial 9 cell battery from lenovo. The box was sealed and included a lenovo "important information about the lenovo batteries" manual. I plugged it in and started up my computer, and it looks like the battery was almost completely drained (which I know is not good for Li Ion batteries, right?). However the battery has 0 cycles and a full charge capacity of 84.24 Wh, which is almost 3 times what my 6 cell has at this point. All in all I'm pleased with this purchase! Like I mentioned above this cost only $75 which is $100 cheaper than buying from Lenovo and $50 cheaper than buying a refurbished battery from lenovo outlet!

Thanks Zaz for the suggestion. I appreciate it.

 

I am seriously considering the ebay one. Looks like there is only one left.

Yesterday, when I was using my laptop at school and not on my notebook cooler, TPFanControl told me PWR was at 55 C. Usually it's the CPU or GPU that is running the warmest. It made me a little concerned and I started to think a generic might run even warmer or worse explode or something.

Anybody know what "PWR" means in TPFanControl?

 

I've been using the battery today and so far it is great. With my monitor on 90% brightness and the power scheme on "battery power" the Thinkpad Power Manager was estimating over 5hrs of battery life on my T61p. This is fantastic, and with some extra battery saving tweaks I can finally stop worrying about battery life with my notebook. I'm going to run down the battery to ~5% and charge it back up. Any suggestions at what to keep a li ion battery charged at? I've heard that it is not good to keep them charged at 100%.

Once my ultrabay battery arrives I will post the added results.

 

I bought one on eBay for $39.99 w/free shipping. Came from Hong Kong. Specs are below. It was advertised as a 7800 mAh battery - same as the Lenovo.

The Lenovo 9-cell renders 84 wH and this battery just over 71. The battery meters show I have between 8 and 9 hours in power saving mode with this T400. Even if I only get between 6 and 7 it's still more than my 6 cell which gives 6 max.

As you can see it's made by Sanyo and although I've hardly used it I expect it to last as long as any Li-ion battery.

I got on the seller for advertising it as a 7800 mAh battery and he said it's like hard disks, they are always advertised as larger than what you actually get after formatting. Lousy logic and I won't be giving the seller five stars, but it's well worth $40. I could buy two of them for what OP paid for the Lenovo even with the discount.

If I were going out in the bush where battery power is important I would surely go with Lenovo batteries.

***********

Friday, February 04, 2011 7:56:23 PM
Main Battery
Battery Name: 42T4522
Manufacturer Name: SANYO
Manufacture Date: 09-27-2010
First Used Date: 06-15-2009
Type: LION - Lithium Ion
Bar-coding Number: 1Z10D02109U
Battery Serial Number: 1577
Designed Capacity Percentage: 100
Current Charge Percentage: 96
Current Charge: 67.79 Wh
Full Charged Capacity: 71.28 Wh
Designed Capacity: 71.28 Wh
Voltage: 12.51 V
Temperature: 20 C
Cycle Count: 1
Battery Status
Test Started 2/4/2011 7:55:40 PM
Test Finished: Passed 2/4/2011 7:55:40 PM

 

plugplayers items - Get great deals on items on eBay Stores!

Was that the seller you bought it from? Not sure if you are the same guy that commented on the Thinkpad forums

 

Sellers name is Pokerbridge. It would be ironic if I gave this seller more business since he is exaggerating the capacity of his battery, but here is the link below. I would look at other sellers from Hong Kong/China/Singapore to see if somebody is actually selling an 84aH nine cell instead of 71.2 like mine. I would pin them down on the aH before buying. There are at least three sellers I was looking at and all for around the $40 point.

9 cell BATTERY FOR Lenovo ThinkPad R400 7443 T400 2764 - eBay (item 230578379071 end time Feb-24-11 20:29:02 PST)

***************

Something else to consider when figuring your expected battery usage. These batteries seem to be rated using 10.8 volts. My T400 draws 12.51 which is typical I think. Using a lower draw gives the battery maker the opportunity to claim a longer use-time. I'm not sure where the battery manufacturers get 10.8 from but it seems to be a common number for them, whereas laptops generally draw well above that figure.

 

Thanks for the link. I think I'm going to go with the plugplayers guy once he returns from Chinese New Year holidays. Someone from the Thinkpad forums said he's pretty legit. I think he's also $30.

 

Are you sure that $30 isn't for a 6-cell? If it's for a 9 cell I'll bet they get the other ten for shipping. Just guessing.

 

I believe it was for a 9cell. Can't find the thread from the Thinkpad forums. I'll let you know soon. I think the guy is reopening his eBay page this Tuesday.

 

There are more problems than that. They can fry your internal charger. I bought some cheapo from Amazon for my T61 when battery when out and it started shutting machine down at first, just randomly. Maybe every hour maybe every 6 hours.

Anyway I did a lot to try and figure what was happening. First I backed up and reinstalled fresh OS. Still random shutdowns. Then ran a bunch of CPU and memory tests no issue but still random shut downs. Bought a new 90W inverter still random shutdowns. Finally I replaced battery with OEM. The random shutdowns stopped but my internal charger failed about 3 months after. I am confident the bad generic battery played a part in this.

Always buy OEM your laptop may depend on it.

I will only buy from Lenovo as well knowing so-called OEMs could be counterfiiet generics outside thier supply chain. It's China, they copy everything from Calloway Golf Clubs to Leopold scopes you find on ebay, a Lenovo battery is trivial to copy for them.

 

My $40 including shipping nine-cell says it's made by Sanyo - a major battery manufacturer. Your camera battery was probably made by Sanyo. The ThinkVantage utility says this - however it's probably easy for the clever Chinese to reset and change whatever internal battery info that the utility is reading. I think they're even making the laptops themselves now so there's no limit to what they can do.

So far the battery is working perfectly fine and the seller has good feedback for his other battery sales. Other than the false advertising regarding the mAh it seems to be a good $40 battery. Time will tell. It is giving 7-8 hours use time in power saving mode.

Notice the manufacture date is 9/2010 and the first used date is in 2009. That's kind of fishy. If they fiddled with the internal battery data perhaps they overlooked changing the first used date.

Agreed that a genuine Lenovo battery is a better choice in all aspects other than price.

 

Your battery is most likely a refurbished one, where the damaged cells are taken out and replaced by new Sanyo cells.