Where is best place to get a new battery for my Dell laptop computer?

[dennis thompson]

I have an older Dell laptop (Inspiron 9400) that needs a new battery. I looked at the Dell site & a battery is $155. I looked on Amazon & a new battery costs $22.This difference doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something here?
Thanks
Dennis

[Joe Pelonio]

Be careful, many of the batteries including those made by Dell are made in China, but some of them that you find online are counterfit
or made to fit your laptop but not very good or don't work at all. I have seen a lot of cases of that with people buying on Amazon or
more so ebay. You can take a chance for $22, but generally a real one discounted and sold online will run at least 50% of the manufacturer price, so about $75 in your case. Like printer ink there is a huge markup on batteries.

[Myk Rian]

B&H would be my first stop. Very reputable place.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com
A (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/)fter that, try Amazon. I bought a Hi output for our HP laptop years ago. Still a good battery.

[Phil Thien]

What Joe said.

I often find good battery deals on eBay. But they're typically U.S.-based sellers with 1-2 batteries, with a believable description ("we ordered six of these from Dell, we only needed four," for example). The pictures show all the Dell packaging, etc.

Batteries shipped from HK or China-based sellers are probably not worth your time.

Always try to find OEM batteries. Use the part # on your existing battery to search eBay.

Oh, and the HK and China batteries are on Amazon, too. Amazon has listing from some of the same sellers as eBay.

[Harry Hagan]

My IBM laptop battery lasted 4½ years. By that time Lenovo no longer stocked a replacement so I’ve resorted to aftermarket replacements. Three years later I’m on the third replacement and it will soon be worthless. The battery distributors tell me all of their stuff is made in China by a handful of manufacturers with the only difference being the distributor’s logo.

The OEM battery that lasted 4½ years was also made in China. Replacement batteries are designed to fail in less than a year so that you’ll buy another battery or a new computer.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

I just bought a replacement battery for a 7 year old Dell 8500. I got it through Amazon - didn't see any reason to pay the ridiculous price for a new one from Dell or some other 'brand name retailers'. It's an old laptop that our daughter is now using....if the battery dies in the next year, we'll probably just get her a new one. Otherwise, for the $25 it cost me, it's worth it.