Some sellers were advertising 5200mAh batteries for the X61 Tablet on eBay. Anybody tried one? I'm wondering if they mistook the non-Tablet X61's specifications instead.

Cheers.

I just bought one (a 4-cell with 30% wear won't get me very far in college classes...), eBay says it'll be here tues/wed and I'll let you know how it is then.

even though you got a battery already (what did you end up getting?), I'll still say what I got:
power manager says it's a sony, full charge capacity is 65.25 Wh. it also didn't complain about it not being a genuine battery.

right now it says this:
remaining capacity: 35.90 Wh
current: 1.75A
voltage: 15.35A
wattage: 26.79W
temp: 30C
cycle count: 1
manufacturer name: SONY
manufacturer date: 2011-03-28
first used date: 2011-03
it has info for serial number and bar-code number
FRU part number: 93P5030
device chemistry: li-ion
design capacity: 65.12 Wh
design voltage: 14.80 V

it also came with directions, saying it should be charged overnight with the computer turned off before use. then once it's charged, discharge it until the computer reports the battery is low. allow battery to cool for 30 minutes, recharge, and repeat for 3 charge/discharge cycles.

even though it's a sony, it has a 3 year warranty and shipping was really fast across the US (ordered friday night, got here monday morning), so i'm not too worried. it will be used heavily during school so i'll post back either when something happens, or in december when the semester is done.

A quick calculation says 65.12 Wh and 14.8V is 4.4 Ah. so it's not 5200 mAh but that's to be expected.
it also looks larger than a standard 8 cell and sticks out 2.1".

That seems kind of strange. 93P5030 seems to be the P/N of X60s non-Tablet batteries.

Anyway, as long as it works.

Cheers.

P.S. Mine is a 4400mAh 8-cell Sanyo cells.

yeah... not sure what's up with the wrong part number. that makes sense when you pair it with the 5200 mAh rating though. I was able to get 5:45 out of the battery before it suddenly dropped from ~4% to dead. this is with overall light usage.

sanyo is what the original 8-cell batteries used, so yours should perform similar to the genuine lenovo batteries.

>5-hour? That sounds good.

Can you take a photo of it? To show how much is "sticks out"?

Cheers.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/m ... 110138.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/m ... 110139.jpg compared to lenovo 4-cell

I'd expect around 5 hours of constant usage with wifi/bluetooth on, but you could probably get more.

Umm... It is large, I'll stick with the normal 8-cell.

Cheers.

it is. maybe the sony cells are larger than the sanyo ones. oh well.
I asked the seller about the battery size and capacity, he said it was 5200 mAh but the numbers I'm reading disagree with that. he also gave me the dimensions of their battery, 275mm x 106mm x 20mm, that sounds right for the genuine 8-cell too. mine is 125mm deep so it sticks out an extra 2cm. now I know why it looked ridiculous when I put the battery on.

I bought one of those large 3rd party batteries, and, it just died today. It never really delivered the capacity it said it would, and, it lasted even less time than the Lenovo (~1 year vs. 2-3 years for Lenovo).

do you know whether the cells were sanyo or sony?

@mario90:

So, do you give that battery a thumbs up? I need to get one, and, this one http://www.amazon.com/ATC%C2%AEIBM-Battery-Repalcement-ThinkPad-CompatiPart/dp/B004BJW4WS/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1312502785&sr=1-7 is on Amazon. Sounds like the same one.

the picture looks like the same size as the genuine lenovo 8 cell. i wouldn't give the battery i got a thumbs down, but it could be better (mainly the size...). yours is labeled "ATC" and that sounds like who I got my battery from, ATC supply. so if you don't mind risking that the battery may stick out an extra 2cm compared to the official 8-cell, i'd say go for it. sometime during or after my fall semester i'll post results with the battery to see how it held up. the one i bought came with a 3 year warranty so i'm not too worried about having issues.

I ended up getting the 5200 mAh battery I mentioned from Amazon. It is a little flaky with how much time it has left, but, I get a solid 4.5 hours with wireless & max screen brightness. So, no complaints for $30. The extra couple of centimeters doesn't bother me. We'll see how long it lasts me.

who's the manufacturer of it? it'll say in the power manager.

here's mine after 7 cycles:

Battery Properties
Device Name 93P5030
Manufacturer SONY
Battery Type Rechargeable Li-Ion
Designed Capacity 65120 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 60990 mWh
Current Capacity 60990 mWh (100 %)
Voltage 16570 mV
Wear Level 6 %

I should have around 70-80 cycles by the middle of december. if it still holds a charge by then.

@mariol90

Sorry, running LInux. Don't know how to find the battery info. It's from the same reseller you got it from, ACT.

Which distro are you using? Under Ubuntu, you can left click on the battery icon (by default on the menu bar o top of the screen), you get a small window with the time remaining for full charge, you select that line and you can get extra info from the battery.



You should get something like this:



Hope this helps...

New 5200 mAh battery is now failing. It's declined to ~30 min of power at nearly fully charge. Well, that certainly was an eventfull couple of weeks. We'll see how the warranty program is.

Keep us updated, please.

Cheers.

It's not necessarily the battery. It looks like some sort of communication problem developed between the battery & my linux X61. I'm going to give it a few more days. It's back up to 4.5 hours. I've seen this sort of crazy stuff before with the X61 batteries, so, I'm hoping I don't have to send it back.

I bought a "5200 mAh battery" on e-bay for my x61t, it looks exactly like original lenovo 8 cell and it has about 4550 mAh capacity (just like original lenovo). So, the seller either lied or sent me incorrect battery. I didn't bother to get an exchange, because need to send to China for a replacement, and same type original lenovo battery cost 5.6 times more than what I paid on ebay. Original Lenovo batteries tend to just break after about ~700 cycles, I have had 3 original batteries. 2 x 8 cell, and 1x4 cell. And my friend had 1x8 cell, and 1x4 cell. All broke between 600-700 cycles, which is good I guess. (I don't now how many cycles non-genuine batteries word, I will tell you, when it breaks )


To find out exact mAh of your battery, open the Power manager>Battery, check "Design Capacity" in Wh, divide it by the "Design volatge" and multiply by 1000. For example, I had design capacity (alternatively use "Full charge capacity", "Voltage" for your current mAh, not design mAh) of 66.25Wh, design voltage of 14.40V, so the battery I got from e-bay really has:

66.25 *1000/14.40 = 4600 mAh (just like ordinary 8 cell battery, not 5200 mAh).


My friend (who also has x61t), also bought a "5200 mah" battery from that same seller, from the same "Buy it now " auction. And when it arrived, it looked slightly differently to original lenovo 8 cell battery, it had two elevated rectangles on the bottom (probably to accommodate extra lithium cells). The battery not only 4400mah, but also it doesn't fit into the docking station. And it has "non-genuine" triangle.

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7449/5200mah1.jpg
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5307/5200mah2.jpg

I haven't returned it. My run time bounces down to 10 minutes and then back up to 4.5 h. Apparently, it needs to discharge the battery periodically to figure out how much charge is on the thing. Since the previous battery wasn't this flaky, I suspect it's some sort of controller on the battery that assumes that the computer won't be plugged in much and so it freaks out if I run it all day on wall power.

So, nothing to see here. It's still working.

That's good, come back and keep us informed of its performance from time to time, please... : )

so far, mine seems to be holding up. the battery says it's from march, so it seems the initial capacity drop (~4 Wh) was due to it sitting or something. it's been at the same 61 Wh capacity since my last post. the percentage is always accurate and the power manager hasn't complained about it being non-genuine.

after nearly 4 weeks the cycle count has gone from 7 to 16 which sounds wrong. i usually charge it 4 times a week.

I just got a 5200mAh from atcsupply on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/110691728090?ss ... 2751wt_930

I didn't notice that it was a different size compared to the original battery until after I opened the package. I'll tell you all how it works once I get another x60 or x61.

here's a picture of it with a couple of 18650 Lithium Ion cells from my flashlights for scale. Most laptop batteries use the same size cells. I'm not sure, but I think this battery is wide enough to fit 12 cells, but you should only need eight to make a 5200mAh pack(four parallel sets of two 2600mAh cells in series.)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1547250/5200mAh.jpg
The raised area on the bottom is wide enough for two cells. The extra space is somewhat puzzling, maybe they thought the x61 needed a larger handle?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1547250/5200mAh2.jpg

[Mod edit: replaced inline images with links.]

someone on here said the larger size is because there are no cells in the rectangular areas of the battery. that sounds right since that part of the battery feels empty.

My cycle count is now 21 after ~2 more weeks, so it's definitely not counting correctly.
also the battery should be rated at 4400 mAh, since 65120 mWh / 14.8V = 4400 mAh, and 65120 mWh and 14.8V are from the power manager. some generic batteries are the same size as the original.

Well, I just won a SXGA+ x61 tablet on ebay, so I'll be testing the battery as soon as it gets here. This is somewhat offtopic, but I just noticed that a couple of the three tiny tabs to the rear of laptop that hold the battery are broken... is this going to ruin my day?

The battery will be "loose" without the tabs from what I've read. I haven't gotten to experience that myself but the battery should still lock in.

[Mod edit: replaced inline images with links.]
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1547250/thinkpa ... tablet.jpg

I finally got a laptop to put the battery in.. It does look and feel too large. I've only got one cycle on it so far, but it seems to perform well. lasted about four hours on full brightness, but the battery meter was all over the place, so I think it needs a few cycles. I'm currently running the Battery Gauge Reset in the power manager. It does not trigger the non-genuine battery warning.

The battery is a bit wiggly with those small tabs broken, but it doesn't feel like it'll fall out at all.

looks just like the one I got. you'll get used to it, it's not too bad and lasts just as long as the genuine battery.
mine now has 25 cycles (so probably 50+ in reality because it can't count), and the full charge capacity went up from 60.99 Wh to 62.11 Wh.

if you mean the time on the battery meter was all over the place, that's just how the meter is. power consumption is always changing so the time is more of an instantaneous estimation.