Not long ago, the battery in my Dell XPS M1330 decided it was time to
die. Apparently, I had hit the wall: my battery which would run fine for
an hour and 20 minutes, just died - one day to the next. No warning
signs. Nothing. What's a geek to do? Look at Dells
offers?
With the cheapest, 4-cell battery coming in at 780 kr. (\$156) that
didn't seem like an option. Instead, good old
eBay seemed more interesting. With 800+ results
for Dell M1330
batteries
there was bound to be something good. Just one minor problem ... pretty
much all of the results are fake batteries. Which leads to the dilemma:
cheap, fake battery or expensive, original battery? Well, I decided to
give the Chinese fakers a chance and sent for a battery from Hong Kong,
figuring that paying the total amount of 400 kr (\$80) was the better
option. Right I was! Haven't had a single problem with the battery (a
9-cell, compared to my previous 6-cell) and I'm now mobile once more.
All I can say is, suck it, Dell! The expensive batteries and other
accessories are a sham, on a par with the printer inks that cost more
than perfume.
Going with this spirit, I decided to look into replacing my iPod
battery. Of late, the charge on it had been reduced from 3-4 hours to 10
minutes, not really acceptable. Buying a new iPod when the old one works
just fine is also not acceptable (I'm sorry but no, I simply do not buy
into the ridiculous consumerism advanced by Apple, MicroSoft and
others). Some googling on the net led to the following site:
ifixipodsfast.com (strange
title, as that's not the domain it's hosted on). The videos of switching
out the battery made it seems so easy that I couldn't stop myself from
purchasing a new battery from BatteriByen
(at 100 kr - \$20). Before I knew it, I had a knife to my iPod, trying
to pry it open. Took me about 30 mins, using improper tools, then the
insides of it were showing and I was looking around for something
looking like a battery. A bit more time, and the iPod closed up again
with just a few marks of my barbaric butchering to show that I'd been
messing with the stuff Apple never wanted to see the light of day. Then
today the battery arrived, along with a set of proper tools, and I could
switch out the battery in about 1 minute flat. One charge later and my
iPod has now been playing for a couple of hours, non-stop.
The moral of the story, you ask? Screw the vendor lock-in, go for the
competitors that make the accessory you need. Don't waste your money,
support the businesses that actually give you what you want without
ripping you off. Oh, and make sure you use proper tools when prying your
precious hardware open.