Hi everybody, Could please tell me how many time does a laptop battery last in general? I'm using a Dell lattitude LS. Thanks in advance.

I ran my old Toshiba laptop for years on the same battery, others might get 6 months. The battery should outlast the laptop, but that won't make money for the mfg. It depends on how you use it and how well you take care of it. Follow the recommendations on battery care in the owners manual and if you have an AC adapter, use that to save battery wear. If you need a battery, do a search for batteries, can save big $$ over the laptop mfg brand.

Yes but how many time can a battery last without any AC adapter? That was my question. Sorry for not having been clear. Thanks in advance

It is hard to give you an estimate. Even the manufacturer can't give you a good number for that. The battery could last literally hours if you're doing nothing, but if on the other hand you are running something that is hard disk intensive it might not last an hour. Your best answer is to use a fully charged battery once until it becomes discharged and note the time you have used it. Then you would have a rough answer for your usage. Sunny

OH. That depends on the user. Just run it until it dies and time it. Can't be more specific because the time will change depending on how many programs are running, how it's used, the room temperature, battery age, many factors. Rule #1, it'll die just when you need it most so to find out the shortest time it'll run on a fully charged battery, fire up and use as many programs as you can. Shortest time? Just boot up and let it sit idling. That should give you a good average.

And NEVER leave it plugged in (recharging) after the battery reaches full power. If you leave it plugged in, over the course of time it will cause the battery to hold less nad less of a charge. It will be only a matter of months before you get only 3-4 minutes of battery use before it dies (after a full charge) Only have the battery + the plug in long enough to get a max charge, then unhook one or the other =)

Just a note and another question. I had a laptop with NiCad batteries that became useless, as noted in Dave C.'s message above. I replaced the NiCad's with Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries, and everything so far is working great. These batteries last for about an hour when I'm using the disk fairly intensely, and for over four hours when I'm not accessing the hard drive at all. I was wondering if anyone else has tried NiMH batteries as replacements for NiCads? It's my understanding that there is no memory problem with the NiMH's as there is with NiCad's. (But any truths about NiMh's catching fire, etc. would be interesting to me, so I'll know to store the laptop in a concrete safe area when I'm asleep.)