Standard vs upgraded battery

Are the upgraded extra celled batteries worth the added life, money, weight, and bulk (battery sticking out)? I.e. 6cell to 9cell about $100.

 

Depends on how much you use your battery. I am very very battery dependant and say, yes, that is $100 well spent. But if you don't need your computer to run for very long on battery, then, no, it's not worth your money.

 

check prices online. lots of batteries go for ~100, in which case you might as well get the 6 cell with the comp, and buy a 9 if needed, and then have 2 batteries.

 

Thanks strike, I hadn't thought of that yet.

About how much more time does a 9 cell provide over a 6?

 

Bigger batteries = bigger in size. Usually making the notebook less thin, and heavier. Batteries are lithium ion, the more you charge, and discharge them. The less charge they will hold as time goes on.
What do I do?
Well 12 cell and 9 cell batteries can be had for inexpensive over the 6 cell, but the size was a concern for me. Plus prior knowledge of lithium ion, and this led me to get (2) 6 cell batteries.
12 cell would of raised the notebook slightly for me, and in the end if I use the crap out of this 12 cell battery, it will be useless in a year. If I have (2) 6 cell, I use the hell out of one battery mainly.

 

The main question still remains though...how much more time do the extra cells add? Is it worth the upgrade? Or should I do what factory81 did? (Which sounds like a really good idea actually, thanks!)

 

Just look at the capacities of the batteries. The unit for this is watt-hour (Wh), and is the product of the voltage (v) and amp-hour (Ah).

If the 6-cell has a capacity of 56Wh and the 9-cell is 85Wh, then the 9-cell would last 51.8% longer under the same usage conditions. Usually you can just look at the number of cells to get an idea of how much more time, i.e. 9-cells has 50% more cells than a 6-cell.

Just as a note, remember that comparing different batteries with the same number of cells isn't always accurate, since, for example, 6-cell batteries can range anywhere from 38Wh optical bay batteries to 65Wh.

Extra batteries can give you more total time, but you'll have to hibernate or shut down in order to swap them. Wouldn't want to have to do that in a middle of a lecture or something.

 

I got both the standard and extended batteries. When I know I am going to travel, I bring both. Daily use I usually need only the 2:30 - 3:00 so I carry the 6 cell for weight savings (1/2 lb).

If I need more time, especially if I run wireless, I use the 9 cell.

 

Oh, I didn't realize you could look at those numbers to tell how long it'll run. I thought those were voltage usages...and just that