Any one know these guys or similar? Ideas on their legitimacy? Presumably they have official batteries. And apparently they are Dell registered partners. But then it’s easy to put a logo on your website…
Mainly ask as battery with p&p on this site is £75. Quite a bit cheaper…
You need to determine if you’re comparing apples to apples re: battery type and cell # etc.
Dell could be Lithium Ion as opposed to NiCad or other. Dell could have 9 cells as opposed to 6. What’s the service plan with Dell as opposed to other?
Another issue with laptop battery “clones” is fusing and safety.
We’ve all heard and seen horror stories of laptops catching fire due to overheated or charging batteries. The issue in some cases is failure to install fused or batteries in laptops rated for the charging cycles. Most of the new laptops use lithium ion battery technologies, for more power in a lighter and sometimes smaller package. Unfortunately, it also means that some vendors cut corners to provide less expensive batteries to the marketplace. And this can sometimes lead to catastrophe as the electrolyte in these batteries is self-oxidizing. Once a litium ion battery is on fire, the only way to snuff it out is with a deluge of water large enough to cool and quench the burning material below ignition temperatures. And this will likely destroy most electrical components as well! Common carbon dioxide extinguishers don’t work, as they can’t cool the batteries effectively to quench the burning.
What does this mean to the average user? “Caveat emptor!”, Let the buyer beware!
Find a reputable battery vendor, prefereably approved by the PC maker, or ones that stand behind their product, preferably with a UL, CSA, DIN, VDE or similar consumer safety rating. These batteries may be a bit more costly than “knock-offs”, but generally have a lower markup than those batteries sold by the laptop vendor. A bit more spent on the battery may save you considerable costs from fires caused by “knock off’s”!