Where should I buy a replacement battery for my laptop?

October 27, 2020 10:03 AM

There is a great range of prices for a replacement battery for my laptop from the manufacturer, so I am not sure where to buy it.

I have an HP Probook 450 G2. Yesterday, I screen popped, apparently from inside the computer and not the Internet, saying I might need to replace the battery soon.

So I looked it up on the HP site, and found the part number is 756743-001. HP says there are none in stock, and the batter costs $83. At other sellers online the battery cost ranges from $24 to $89.

Does it matter where I buy it from? Do you have a seller to recommend? Or should I try to order it from a local shop? There is one my dad uses semi-regularly.

posted by NotLost to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

There's a lot of counterfeit batteries out there, especially on eBay and Amazon. They can range from actually dangerous to underperforming to actually decent. So if it seems too good to be true, be cautious. If you can find one in stock at a business oriented retailer like CDW, it might be worth the extra money for the genuine thing.
posted by Candleman at 10:11 AM on October 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: iFixit is reputable. Is this it?
https://www.ifixit.com/Store/PC-Laptop/HP-VI04-Replacement-Laptop-Battery/IF273-003?o=1
posted by 10ch at 10:30 AM on October 27, 2020

For example.
posted by Candleman at 10:42 AM on October 27, 2020

The big problem I've had with cheap batteries is that the lifetime tends to be shorter and they tend not to age gracefully - that means swelling and/or leaking. If you are on top of things and don't expect things to last forever, go ahead with the cheap ones.
posted by Dmenet at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2020

I once bought a 3rd party battery for a marine GPS unit. It seemed to fit OK, but in fact had just a millimeter or so of play and could move enough to break the connection and shut down the device. I solved the problem by shimmying it with a bit of cardboard, but the lesson is that the off-brand item could be 1% not the right thing.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:47 PM on October 27, 2020

Best answer: For reviews, I like to paste the Amazon URL into https://fakespot.com. They will identify the obviously fake reviews and give you a better idea of the general quality of the store.

Last time I purchased a replacement battery for an 11" MacBook Air, the first four suggestions from Amazon had a rating of "F", i.e. don't bother. The one I chose had a lot of reviews, a rating of "B", and the resulting battery works very well. My previous experience, sans fakespot, was a bad, low quality battery.
posted by blob at 2:42 PM on October 27, 2020

Watching this thread. I have a couple of old HP's (Pavilion 2 & 7 Series) for which one can no longer find genuine HP replacement batteries. I would love to keep using these laptops if I can find trustworthy substitutes.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:14 PM on October 27, 2020

Best answer: Apologies if I'm stating the obvious, but do you actually need to replace the battery? Avoiding the unnecessary purchase and disposal of batteries is both frugal and environmentally responsible.

These warning messages are usually triggered by the computer comparing the original capacity of the battery to the actual capacity each time it is charged. When the actual capacity is less than a certain percentage of the original capacity, the suggestion to replace the battery appears.

However, many people rarely or never use their laptop on battery power, but have it plugged in on a desk almost all the time. In that case low capacity will not affect their ability to use the laptop and replacing the battery is a waste of money. If you are not inconvenienced by your battery life, it may not be a problem.

I have read manufacturer advice that old batteries can leak and damage the laptop and so should be replaced after a certain number of years. I have owned and donated to friends and family many laptops which were more than five or even ten years old and have never encountered this problem.

(The same approach applies when it comes to choosing a replacement battery. Cheap batteries will quite soon lose their ability to hold a charge for long, but this is only a problem for users who need long battery life.)
posted by Busy Old Fool at 1:23 AM on October 28, 2020

The battery on one of my laptops is 100% dead, but Busy Old Fool has a point. If I buy the tiniest UPS I can find and lash my laptop's power brick to it, that's probably all would need to keep it going while I move it from room to room!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:14 AM on October 28, 2020

Response by poster: Duh, I think Busy Old Fool has it. I actually use the battery only a little. Thank you all!
posted by NotLost at 10:18 AM on October 28, 2020