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Looking at a replacement 9-cell battery for my Dell 1525 I've noticed that the OEM batteries that Dell sells are up to 3x more expensive than batteries sold by a 3rd party vendor. Is the Dell premium worth it? What experiences have you had buying replacement batteries?

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Though it may be subjective/argumentive, I feel that you can't really argue with Wil's answer. It's just good advice! – Ivo Flipse♦ Jan 18 '10 at 9:54
Check the Dell website for customer reviews of their AC adapters. You'll quickly see that Dell's own stuff is very poor quality, apparently built to fail in about 2 years, so that you'll have to pay for a new one (they get about a 90% profit margin on them). – MGOwen May 26 '10 at 1:31
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Honestly, I have never had a problem with third party batteries where the specification matches.

However, if your laptop is still in warranty, I would only use official ones as they will probably use this as an excuse not to service the laptop.

If the laptop is out of warranty, I would personally use a third party battery.

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Even if the laptop is in warranty, how can they use this as an excuse? If you have to claim warranty, you can always put in the original battery :-). – sleske Jun 20 '10 at 20:04
Also note that in many countries, it is not allowed to deny a warrant claim just because an aftermarket part was used; the vendor has to prove that the part actually caused the problem. In the US e.g. this is apparently regulated by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act – sleske Jun 20 '10 at 20:15
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up vote 1 down vote

when it comes to crucial parts like batteries i always recommend a replacement by the manufacturer.

Dell is certainly not cheap when it comes to replacement batteries, but a battery for only 33% of Dell's price sounds rather fishy to me.

worst case scenario (being the devil's advocate here): the battery could be a fire hazard and any damage caused by a fire may not be covered by the insurance if an investigation can trace the cause to an uncertified replacement battery (hence the quite frequent recalls by manufacturers if the slightest suspicion arises that a battery is potentially unsafe). any warranty concerns will be rather minor then, my deux centimes. :)

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