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I had a similar experience with Dell after they wanted the price of a new laptop for a replacement laptop battery. This was for the Dell Studio back when batter

I had a similar experience with Dell after they wanted the price of a new laptop for a replacement laptop battery. This was for the Dell Studio back when battery packs were made to be swappable by simply sliding a latch. After that phone call to customer support, I made a similar vow to never buy another Dell product. These days, I use a Framework laptop.

throwaway2037 2y ago
You couldn't buy something from eBay or TaoBao/Alibaba?
- jszymborski 2y ago
  I did in fact buy a knock-off from ebay battery, but it kept it kept it's charge for hilariously little time. Had to run it of mains power permanently (ran it as a little server for a while).
  - jajko 2y ago
    Don't know your exact timing but I run basically on Dells Latitude laptops for past 2 decades. Since its just for travel and not my primary workhorse, I buy used corporate ones for pittance (cca 300$ for models worth 1500 few years before), and swap battery myself for another original OEM one, they cost less than 100$ from original manufacturer. Its just 2-3 philips screws and 1 cable, anybody can do it. They last just as much as advertised on new ones and don't degrade much even after few years. Batteries (and ie chargers) are one of the things that's utterly idiotic to shop around on chinese portals. You literally always get what you pay for (or worse) and can't punch above this threshold.
    - jszymborski 2y ago
      This was mid 2010s and the laptop has long since bit the dust. IIRC this was a Dell Studio 15, but I recall checking eBay for old new stock with no luck, but it doesn't surprise me that the Dell Latitudes have lots of stock floating around ebay.
- GJim 2y ago
  If Sir is buying his lithium batteries and/or power transformers from the likes of eBay, Alibaba and Amazon, then Sir may wish to check his fire insurance is up to date.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    I have bought many third party rechargable batteries from those sites over the years. Yes, slightly lower charge capacity compared to original, but no fires. And, yes, I know my sample size is small!
    - GJim 2y ago
      One ebay sourced Chinese transformer that blew its back off (!) letting our the magic smoke and tripping the RCB was enough for me. These days I'm older and wiser.
    - lobocinza 2y ago
      I also had similar good experiences buying batteries on Aliexpress. The issue with those typically isn't intrinsic quality as the batteries are most of the time good but lack of quality control. Bad batteries will reach the market and this is specially dangerous with packs with many cells like e-bikes packs.
calmbonsai 2y ago
FWIW, it was the same (even at the enterprise level). We had a commodity (local cloud) computing Dell infra in the mid 2010s and were constantly replacing/returning “simple stuff” (fans, support flanges, memory, NICs). “Dude, you’re gettn’ a Dell” became—-nope, never again.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jszymborski 2y ago
  My sitch was around the same time period.
- arkh 2y ago
  I feel like there are not good quality hardware company nowadays. Dell: the land of motherboard dying and dog shit trackpads. Asus: dead soldered RAM. Most BIOS: too long to boot, it's fucking 2024 what is your BIOS doing it needs more than 2s to boot? It was taking the same time to boot 30 years ago. Every mouse: double click problem due to wrong use of the actuators. And every hardware company has to try to cram some badly designed software and require you to create an account.
  - calmbonsai 2y ago
    Your trackpad comment brought back a memory of 6 of us in a conference room. We all had the same OS (NT) to the same patch level, same trackpad config, and same model of Dell laptop and every _single_ trackpad felt different. They weren't strictly "defective", but just wildly disparate physical feels and responsiveness. I will give shout-outs to: 4th gen Kindles (has physical buttons and lasts forever), first gen iPhone SE, and Microsoft Mobile Mouse 3600.
  - alias_neo 2y ago
    > too long to boot, it's fucking 2024 what is your BIOS doing it needs more than 2s to boot? Me crying in first-gen Ryzen/x370 with my upward of 20 seconds POST time.

throwaway2037 2y ago

You couldn't buy something from eBay or TaoBao/Alibaba?

jszymborski 2y ago
I did in fact buy a knock-off from ebay battery, but it kept it kept it's charge for hilariously little time. Had to run it of mains power permanently (ran it as a little server for a while).
- jajko 2y ago
  Don't know your exact timing but I run basically on Dells Latitude laptops for past 2 decades. Since its just for travel and not my primary workhorse, I buy used corporate ones for pittance (cca 300$ for models worth 1500 few years before), and swap battery myself for another original OEM one, they cost less than 100$ from original manufacturer. Its just 2-3 philips screws and 1 cable, anybody can do it. They last just as much as advertised on new ones and don't degrade much even after few years. Batteries (and ie chargers) are one of the things that's utterly idiotic to shop around on chinese portals. You literally always get what you pay for (or worse) and can't punch above this threshold.
  - jszymborski 2y ago
    This was mid 2010s and the laptop has long since bit the dust. IIRC this was a Dell Studio 15, but I recall checking eBay for old new stock with no luck, but it doesn't surprise me that the Dell Latitudes have lots of stock floating around ebay.
GJim 2y ago
If Sir is buying his lithium batteries and/or power transformers from the likes of eBay, Alibaba and Amazon, then Sir may wish to check his fire insurance is up to date.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  I have bought many third party rechargable batteries from those sites over the years. Yes, slightly lower charge capacity compared to original, but no fires. And, yes, I know my sample size is small!
  - GJim 2y ago
    One ebay sourced Chinese transformer that blew its back off (!) letting our the magic smoke and tripping the RCB was enough for me. These days I'm older and wiser.
  - lobocinza 2y ago
    I also had similar good experiences buying batteries on Aliexpress. The issue with those typically isn't intrinsic quality as the batteries are most of the time good but lack of quality control. Bad batteries will reach the market and this is specially dangerous with packs with many cells like e-bikes packs.

calmbonsai 2y ago

FWIW, it was the same (even at the enterprise level). We had a commodity (local cloud) computing Dell infra in the mid 2010s and were constantly replacing/returning “simple stuff” (fans, support flanges, memory, NICs). “Dude, you’re gettn’ a Dell” became—-nope, never again.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jszymborski 2y ago
My sitch was around the same time period.
arkh 2y ago
I feel like there are not good quality hardware company nowadays. Dell: the land of motherboard dying and dog shit trackpads. Asus: dead soldered RAM. Most BIOS: too long to boot, it's fucking 2024 what is your BIOS doing it needs more than 2s to boot? It was taking the same time to boot 30 years ago. Every mouse: double click problem due to wrong use of the actuators. And every hardware company has to try to cram some badly designed software and require you to create an account.
- calmbonsai 2y ago
  Your trackpad comment brought back a memory of 6 of us in a conference room. We all had the same OS (NT) to the same patch level, same trackpad config, and same model of Dell laptop and every _single_ trackpad felt different. They weren't strictly "defective", but just wildly disparate physical feels and responsiveness. I will give shout-outs to: 4th gen Kindles (has physical buttons and lasts forever), first gen iPhone SE, and Microsoft Mobile Mouse 3600.
- alias_neo 2y ago
  > too long to boot, it's fucking 2024 what is your BIOS doing it needs more than 2s to boot? Me crying in first-gen Ryzen/x370 with my upward of 20 seconds POST time.