I use my laptops so much that I wear out the batteries about once every year. (I have a Dell and HP, but this was also a problem with a Macbook.) OEM replacements tend to cost in the $100 - $150 range -- which is ridiculous considering that decent laptops themselves are in the $500 - $1000 range these days.<p>It's clear that manufacturers have figured out that they can pretty much get us to fork over an extra 10% of the laptop's cost for every year we use it.<p>So I've tried purchasing knockoff replacements from different places and have only been successful 25% of the time. Three out of four batteries died after a month. (And by died, I mean they suddenly went from powering my laptop for 4 hours to causing it to shutdown suddenly after 45 minutes.)<p>My question is this: What does everyone else do when their laptop battery dies? Do you buy a new OEM replacement, or do you have a goods source for cheaper reliable replacements? Does it make sense to pay for the extended battery warranty?<p>Also, I've seen this post on HN about repairing the batteries yourself, but the risk of explosion or fire isn't something I like to worry about:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1403726