Buy non-original battery ...or not?

[aldarxt]

I don't use my batteries. That being said my Alienware 18x r2 purchased 10-12-2012, brand new has its original battery in it and its at about 93 percent. It has never been run down. Only when there is a power outage I run around shutting down the laptops, 6 active running and 1 retired and 2 dead. All active have original manufacturers batteries but not all at 100 percent. The 2 precisions when unplugged will last minuets and shut off. But none are expanding, exploding or leaking. OEM is what I would recommend. I have a Asus G51J that died 1 1/2 years ago that I put a Ninja Bat in 6 mos before it died so I have no idea how good it might have been. I went through the same dilema about what to buy. This past week I purchased from Newegg what looks to be a Alienware m17x r4 original battery and it is the only battery at 100 percent now. But I have doubts due to texture finish not matching the base of the PC it might be a clone. So just on the 18x  being so old and still working I would want OEM first choice. I don't think I could find an OEM for the 18x anyway.

[ygohome]

I forgot to update this with my results after purchasing the official dell battery from the dell website.

 

It works great.  Definitely get an official OEM battery when buying.

 

I fully charged it then I began testing it.

 

I setup bios for Intel graphics rather than dGPU.

 

I setup power options when on battery as so:

• 40% processor state minimum
• active cooling policy
• max PCIe power savings
• intel graphics maximum battery life
• medium power savings for wireless adapter

I purposefully configured this test NOT to shutoff the display or storage drives  or to enter sleep when low or critical because I wanted to see how long it would last.

 

Set power mode slider switch for "Best Battery Life".  This is a slider in the system tray when clicking on the battery icon (win10).  Not sure if that overrides any of my custom power options, but it lasted a heck of a long time before battery died.  Over 3 hrs for a 17" 4k laptop.

 

I unplugged from AC, with a minimal brightness and after 2 hrs it had only drained 54,000mWh of the 91,000mWh new battery according to the powershell battery report.  I continued the test and it stayed up for over 3 hrs.  I wasn't always working on it that whole time, just browsing internet, but the display was always on and a chrome browser was open the entire time.  That was about a month ago and it's still working great, but I'm almost always on AC.  When the battery is fully charged it remains dormant and isn't trickle charging.  Seems the Win10 OS and Dell BIOS are smart enough to know when and when not to charge the battery to ensure a longer battery life.

 

It's been a month since installing the battery and so far so good.