Dell Laptop Replacement Batteries

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Greetings All –

I recently inherited a used Dell Vostro 3300 Laptop. It seems in excellent shape except the battery quickly loses its charge. The Dell Website offers a replacement (4JK6R 312-0997) for about $130.00. A web search finds numerous possibilities, some of the prices no doubt too good to be true. I desire neither a poor quality battery that fries my laptop, nor worse, put my personal safety at risk. Newegg offers a replacement from Denaq for about half of what Dell is charging. I don’t want to do anything foolish, but I also wouldn’t mind saving some money. Any opinions on Denaq batteries would be appreciated. Dell is also highly proprietary, and even if Denaq is a good brand, I’m somewhat afraid that it might not work, although both the manufacturer part number and the Dell part number are listed in the literature. Thanks.

Casey H.

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I can only tell you of my experiences in 20 years of laptop ownership.

Li-Ion batteries can catch fire. No matter who makes them.

The battery that came with a new laptop has always been the best.

OEM batteries from the laptop maker in my experience are no better and often worse than a 3rd party battery despite the cost. Even if you order a mfg. spare with a new laptop often it is not as good as the original battery.

I have had pretty good satisfaction with those half price batteries. It is only the OEM replacements so far that have disappointed me. As far as Denaq, never heard of them, which means nothing. I’d hold off until you hear from others.

I have ordered batteries form eBay, Amazon and http://www.priorityelectronics.com/laptop-batteries.htm. Additionally you can have your batteries rebuilt by BatteriesPlus or http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/index.phtml.

Wow, while grabbing the links it turns out I did order batteries for a Gateway laptop in 2011 from Denaq. They were good batteries with the appropriate chip that would communicate with Hardware Monitor conveying status and other info—I remember because the original battery pack with the laptop did not convey anywhere near the info that popped up with the new batteries. The fact I didn’t remember the company likely means I neither thought highly or badly about the batteries, I was just satisfied with them.

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Thanks a bunch. I think I’ll give Denaq a try. Very interesting thought about a rebuild from Batteries Plus. I might check that as well. I’d probably try that path first except the replacement is an upgrade with higher capacity.

Casey

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I have had about four Dell laptops over the past 10 years. All of them have developed battery problems — specifically, you can’t run them for very long on battery power alone.

One of them got so bad that it had enough charge to last till Windows loaded, then it would die.

I purchased a power inverter for my car, and a long extension cord. This enables me to use my laptop in just about any location, without having to worry about whether or not I have enough battery power.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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….All of them have developed battery problems — specifically, you can’t run them for very long on battery power alone….

Which is why you replace the batteries every 18 months and why more modern ones can actually give your laptop realtime feedback as to how much capacity they have lost.

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Higher capacity is the norm in replacement batteries – the technology has improved since the old battery was built.

cheers, Paul

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