With all the makes and models out there it may be a bit tricky to buy a laptop battery. If you need to buy laptop battery yourself, you should try to go for a brand that has a lasting reputation to support its quality. It is not necessarily true that if you buy a Compaq laptop battery that Compaq manufactured it from scratch. During this era of specialization, most of the organization is having their components produced by third party manufacturers who have the skills, expertise and can ensure quality.

If you take Sony laptop battery into pieces, you will see that each component is not manufactured by Sony themselves. Rather while the casing may have a noticeable imprint of Sony, components within it may have different manufacturers with their individual brand names labeled. This under no circumstances means that the battery is in any way of a lower quality than it would be if Sony manufactured it. To the contrary most of the components of computers, laptops and accessories are manufactured by individual organizations which specialize in manufacture of those products. An easy example would be your laptop with Intel Pentium processor. While your laptop may actually be of Compaq or Acer or Dell the processor is manufactured by Intel who specialize in manufacturing of processors.

That being said it may also be sensible to buy a generic laptop battery. By generic I mean those brands that are not as popular. Quite often they have components from the same source as more reputed brands and may offer the same quality. The advantage in buying a generic laptop battery is that they offer a better price than their branded counter parts. Never the less, always go for a reliable manufacturer whether it is branded or non-branded. Your store keeper may be able to give you more information on the feedback of laptop batteries for generic ones.

Now that the brand is out of the way, I recommend buying a laptop battery that offers at least one year warranty. Cheap or expensive I believe this is the way to go. This option provides you a tension free period of a year during which if your battery fail to perform you can get a replacement or as stated in your warranty statement. Although refurbished or used laptops batteries may seem tempting, since they dont offer any warranty it may be a bit risky investment since you can never predict their performance or longevity.

Another important issue to look into is the type of battery to buy. Laptop batteries are usually of four types: the Ni-Cad, Ni-MH, Li-Ion, and Li-Poly. The Ni-Cad is more of a primitive type of laptop batteries and is not manufactured by any major manufacturers. Although Ni-MH is a newer and advanced battery type it ranks lower than Li-Ion and Li-Poly when it comes to current produced. These two types of laptop batteries, Li-Ion and Li-Poly, are most advanced type and you should try to get them if possible.

Keep in mind to look for power rating of the laptop batteries as well, the volts and amperes. If not compatible to your laptop you should not use them under any circumstances. Remember at all times you can ask the store keeper for clarification about the product you are buying and whether they are compatible to your system. Dont buy if you are not satisfied with what you hear.