$99 laptop battery: worth it?
July 15, 2008
Brooke’s post on holding onto old things reminded me that I’d never checked on the pricing of a replacement battery for my old Sony Vaio. (I’d been having new-tech cravings, and had been contemplating getting a new lappie. I was all set to justify it, except that it’s not really justifiable. I want a new laptop that runs perfectly, I don’t need it. Even if I did need it, I don’t have the spare cash for it anyway! So there.) Even though I feel like I can’t trust eBay for something like this, I checked there first, and found nothing.
I Googled it, and found one laptop battery site that lists it for $99. It comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, and a 1 year warranty, shipped new.
Other sites don’t even list the battery needed for this model. (It’s times like this I’m glad that I’m so ridiculously Asian that I left the information stickers on my computer. Quick and easy model reference right under my left wrist!)
Sony doesn’t even have the model number in their database anymore, or at least I can’t find it on their site anywhere.
So how much is too much for a replacement battery? In comparison to the original purchase price, it’s no more than ten percent of the cost of the notebook, but I doubt that the computer’s worth half that price now.
At this point, it’s likely to be more a matter of what’s more worth it: paying $100 for a battery or $XXX for a new computer. Drat. I know that Option A is the most frugal because there’s nothing major wrong with the computer … but I still covet a new lappy. š
I had this same problem with my computer! The question you need to ask is if the computer does the things you want it to do. If yes, there’s no reason you can’t just replace the battery. However, if you’ve just got 512MB of RAM and a 10GB hard drive, an upgrade might be a better choice.
Buy the battery and then save up for a new laptop! š
My 4 year old Vaio desktop has been running slow and I’ve been considering a new one (or laptop) but I really don’t need it (and I don’t want Vista). I should look into upgrading it. But it’s mostly the Office products open slow and sometimes Firefox.
paranoidasteroid: *sigh* It … mostly does. I don’t ask much of it, though, I’ve been using my work computer for a lot of things but I want to wean myself off that entirely.
The brightness, or perma-darkness really, does bother me a lot, though.
karen: I almost just want to start saving for the new laptop and darn the old old! But that feels so wasteful. I can just stick it out for another couple years, I suppose. š