X200s battery

Hi guys,

Ended up picking up a X200s for £50, but the 6 cell battery is showing a replacement warning.

I'd like to buy a new 9 cell, but I don't know which one to go for. Genuine batteries are expensive, and I don't want to get a 3rd party one that is utter crap.

Can anyone recommend a good seller?

 

There are genuine batteries available on eBay at attractive prices, but the thing you've got to be concerned about is how long it's been sitting. Due to the chemical properties of batteries they start to degrade as soon as they're made. I purchased a R400 battery on eBay last year and once I fired it up the charge capacity was only about 90% of the design capacity. The nice thing about eBay is you can dispute the sale for 45 and the chances you'll lose are statistically insignificant. The other option would be to negotiate a discount with the seller, which is what I did.

 

90% capacity is not too bad for a laptop of that genre. My experience with third party replacement batteries had never been good so now I either go the original route or recell. Them hi-cap 500 cycle panasonics cells are the best if one know where can get fresh supply that has not been in storage too long.

 

I bought this: Anker® New Laptop Battery Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad X200 X200S X201 X201I Series [Li-ion 6-cell 4400mAh/49WH]: Amazon.ca: Electronics

And so far, working great... Anker is pretty well-known.

Edit: Looks like it's only "officially" available through Amazon in USA/Canada/Germany (but maybe you can find some on ebay): Anker® New Laptop Battery for Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad X200 X200S X201 X201I Series - 18 Months Warranty [Li-ion 6-cell 4400mAh/49Wh]

I also previously ordered from a lesser-known Chinese manufacturer on ebay, and while the battery has been working fine for about 18 months now, the locking mechanism doesn't work so if you're not careful it can get loose. I don't know if it was originally that way or if it wore out over time...

 

I've been lucky with ebay batteries so far. I have not received a clunker *knock on wood* yet. What I make sure, going the ebay route, is if the battery contains the necessary microchip that will obey any charge thresholds I set. If the listing does not explicitly state that it does I will PM the seller for documentation in case something goes awry with the battery.

 

Interesting, I didn't know there were third-party batteries that supported that. My first one certainly didn't, and I'm not sure about the second (Anker) one as I bought it for a family member.

One thing I've noticed is (sorry, a little off-topic), there doesn't seem to be third-party batteries around for the Haswell Thinkpads. Does anybody know why? Are they just too new, or has Lenovo somehow locked out third-party battery vendors?

 

Actually, it started with Ivy Bridge machines.

They will not charge a third-party or even an older (from *20 series) genuine Lenovo battery.

So yeah, feebay/Amazon vendors are SOL with newer ThinkPads.

 

That's not good... OEM batteries are way too expensive. I wonder if manufacturers will figure out a way to circumvent that, like they've done with toner cartridge chips? I should find out if Dell or HP do the same...