Yeah, thinking I'm gonna get lots of fun with this. Dell Vostro 3550 laptop, looks like a replacement battery is necessary. Question: buy from Dell or Amazon or somewhere else? Are there differences in quality, because the price really varies. Bought this laptop early in 2010.
Price variance is most likely due to difference in charge capacity. Bigger battery means bigger price tag. The batteries on Amazon are probably third party batteries. There may be nothing wrong with them, or they may be better than the Dell battery. It's a little bit of a crapshoot. I'd personally buy the battery from Dell. Keep the warranty kosher, if you're worried about that. If not, third party is worth a shot.
So instead of paying $115 thru Dell, I'm paying $35 supposedly for the same damn thing? I'll send the thing back if it doesn't live up to the $115 version. lol Print a label and ship it back to Amazon at no cost. You got to love their return policy. Not expecting anything...
Its the same. Could of spent like $168 for the upgraded version thru Dell. This laptop is 3 1/2 years old anyway so probably buy another in a year or so. Its coming from Texas so I'm pretty sure its one of Stiches old used up batteries. Its funny reading the reviews on some of these "replacement" batteries.
Rated capacity isn't the same as actual capacity, that's all I'll say. But yeah, you should be fine with the new battery. Later this year or early next year will be a decent time to buy a new laptop, once the new Intel CPUs come out.
As someone who worked selling computers and accesories for 13 years, my advice would be to avoid dumping the money into a new battery and put it towards a new PC. Unless the thing was crazy top of the line, or you need Windows 7 to run programs that won't run on 8 (which I understand), putting $100+ into a 3.5 year old machine is a bit of a waste.