Longway GPS Blog

Admit it. Come out of denial. You know your laptop that was supercool 2 years ago now gets 15 minutes of VGP-BPS2A battery life. It sucks and we all share the same problem eventually. Laptop batteries (and many others) will start to lose their total charging capacity after awhile. It’s slow so we usually don’t notice it until years later. But when it happens, you can’t help but go insane. Laptop batteries usually cost a fortune (my 12-inch powerbook VGP-BPS2B battery is like $130). This is why you should take the road less traveled and rebuild your battery.

So what do you have to do? Well it’s not too complicated, you just have to basically replace the individual cells inside of the latitude d620 battery casing. Ever have an R/C car and you had to buy those $20 battery packs at Radio Shack for them? Well if you take a close look, it’s usually just 6 batteries saran-wrapped together with a proprietary plug. Same goes for these laptop batteries.

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When there are no power outlets in sight there’s nothing more frustrating than a dying laptop battery. We’ve all been in that situation where we have a couple hours of work left to finish but our battery life is only estimated to last one more. Good news. Often times these situations can be avoided by optimizing the battery performance. Here are 20 tips that will help your laptop battery last longer.

1. Calibrate your battery - Most laptop batteries these days have internal processors that provide an estimate of your battery life. Calibrating your battery so it shows the correct battery time and percentage is the first step in getting the most performance out of your laptop battery. Ideally, you should do this 3-4 times per year and should consult your owner’s manual for instructions.

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