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Who offers an option like Lenovo, using the slim bay for an extra battery?

post #1 of 7
5/16/07 at 1:28am
Thread Starter 
If you've read my last question then you know I care A LOT about battery life. I almost never use CD/DVD drives once I have my things installed and will either look for a notebook that simply does away with an internal drive or one that allows me to replace it with something useful.

I've noticed Lenovo offers a battery that can take the place of the CD/DVD drive and I'm very intrigued. I haven't found much about people doing this in the Lenovo forum. Anyone know how many cells this ultrabay battery is? How much extra time do you get with it? Is there some unforseen disadvantage to doing this other than the obvious ones of not having a CD/DVD drive for the moment and possibly a slight increase in weight? Are there other manufacturers that offer a similar solution? It would seem to me that this would be a very common capability but in my brief search I've come up empty on user experiences with this or any other manufacturers that support this... Any links or info would be much appreciated! Thanks.
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post #2 of 7
5/16/07 at 4:27am
Dell D series Latitudes and the Precision M65 support the secondary battery. I beleive HP's business laptops do as well. Don't know about any others. The Dell battery is a 6 cell gives me 7 or 8 hours total in my D820 when coupled with the 9 cell.
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post #3 of 7
5/16/07 at 6:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEvil
Dell D series Latitudes and the Precision M65 support the secondary battery. I beleive HP's business laptops do as well. Don't know about any others. The Dell battery is a 6 cell gives me 7 or 8 hours total in my D820 when coupled with the 9 cell.
does the 9 or 6 cell batteries for the D820 change the form factor? If so, by how much?
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post #4 of 7
5/16/07 at 6:20am
Somtimes I wish the M170s had an extra battery bay. I can only last one lecture before the battery runs low.
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post #5 of 7
5/16/07 at 7:25am
Thread Starter 
I just don't understand why this isn't a standard feature. I hate the Dell's that allow this option and the Lenovo models aren't exactly anything worth getting excited over yet this is pretty much a must have feature for me. I need to be able to go most of the day without worrying about battery life. Its annoying that I'll have to settle for something less than ideal b/c of this one feature. I never ever use CD/DVD drives, I'd gladly give them up for a battery.
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post #6 of 7
5/16/07 at 10:05am
Some of the Tecra's by Toshiba offer this as well. Look for the ones with the "slim-select bay" optical drives. I know it's in the M5 and it looks like it's in the new M9. AFAIK it's not in any of the A series Tecra's. Toshiba also offers a big 12 cell battery. Some of these laptop's when using the 12 cell and the select bay battery will get over 12 hours (or more) on battery.

Also, I know that some of the P-M Asus laptops used to have them. I haven't checked any of the newer ones, but it'd be worth a look.

It's not a standard option becasue MOST people don't need that much. They just want something cheap that will get them a few hours if that. These modular systems cost more money to design and manufacture, so th laptops that have them usually cost substantially more than simiarly spec'd machines that don't offer them. Look into the buisness lines of other manufacturer's. I'm sure that you'll fins the same thing offered by Fujitsu, HP and all the big guys if you know where to look.
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post #7 of 7
5/16/07 at 12:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aakast42
does the 9 or 6 cell batteries for the D820 change the form factor? If so, by how much?

The 9 cell battery fits the D820 without any extra protrusions (15.4" Laptops can have a bigger battery). And six cell is the smallest battery you can get for the D820.

and g00nter is correct. A modular bay isn't a feature consumers want in a laptop. Adding that feature in incurs additional cost (the cartridge surrounds for the drives just for starters) then you have the connectors themselves which need to be reinforced to allow many connects and disconnects without failing.

Business customers do often want a modular bay feature on their laptops. They don't mind paying an extra $120 for the modular bay battery. They also have employees that might need an integrated floppy drive, or want the extra battery runtime or even have a 2nd hard drive in the system. (I have them all).

I've only had ONE customer with an Inspiron that had the secondary battery and she didn't even know what it was until I explained it to her.
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