Will it be possible to replace Thinkpad Helix's battery?

Having finally found a suitable tablet, i'm curious to know, if it's possible to replace the battery in the Helix tablet (not the dock) by myself?
I don't want to throw the tablet away when it reaches full recharge cycles and sending it back to lenovo for battery replacement would take a lot of time.

 

I think the videos are up on the site showing how to do it, but it looks like you have to take it apart somewhat, which may or may not have consequences for the warranty.

 

According to the service manual, you have to remove the screen assembly (attached via latches on the sides and 3 connector cables inside). The battery is right underneath that, secured with 4 screws.

Not sure whether Lenovo implements stickers or other materials that void your warranty in their tablets, or if these custom batteries will even be widely/cheaply available.

 

The Lenovo warrenty for my Helix is three years but only 1 year on the battery. If the battery fails or stops holding a full charge the user manual says to contact Lenovo in order to send it to a service center for battery replacement. It's clearly not meant to be replaced by the typical end user

 

I don't think Lenovo uses warranty-void stickers, although replacing the battery on your own would probably void your warranty as it's not a CRU. So, it could be possible if you're careful and are able to hunt down a replacement battery.

 

However, if you do so and Lenovo wants to make an issue of it, they can and there's nothing you could do about it.

 

1 year warranty is usual on all notebook batteries, irrespective of brand. Being built-in however makes that more of a premature end-of-the-road scenario, because having them replaced outside warranty could be cost-prohibitive. That is why Lenovo is offering battery warranty extensions. And those are quite cheap in comparison actually


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Even if you know how to replace the battery, there is nowhere to purchase it after market.

 

Hopefully, this internal battery design craze comes to an end soon.

 

I'm willing to bet my last ThinkPad that the situation will change within a year or less and that there will be half a zillion online sellers offering these...whether genuine or not.

 

There won´t be any non-genuine batteries for any of the new models anymore, since last year ThinkPad batteries include chips to identify whether they are genuine or not, and if they are not genuine then they won´t be charged.

 

And I'll give that a year as well...for the manufacturers to figure out how to by-pass the chip's software or fool it in another way...