Decent Battery for T430 Thinkpad?

Dijon · September 28, 2020

Hey all I have a bit of a problem concerning my laptop. Next year I wish to go to University and take my 1 year old T430 with me since I have legit fallen in love with this machine, I have taken it apart so easily just for fun and plan to upgrade it in the future. I am thinking of doing a Computer Science degree and this laptop would be perfect, however there are 2 major downsides.

One is that the campus to the Uni is rather large so there will be a lot of walking and the T430 weighs nearly 3kg which can be tiresome and annoying, however I would not mind the weight if it wasn't for the battery of this machine. You see currently I am getting 2 hours max with all setting in power saving mode. This thing takes enough space as it is and weighs a lot too so having to carry a charger for it at Uni is a immediate no for me. My question is what is the best type of battery for this laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T430 - i5 3320M - 8gb ram - 256gb ssd) that will help me get through the day once I hopefully get to University. I am looking for at least 4-5 hours of battery life since I believe that is all I would need. If anyone can send me links or help me find one that would be perfect and I would be very grateful. Also if anyone can help me in terms of any problems buying a new aftermarket battery such as a "whitelist" the laptop has which I am unfamiliar with?

Many Thanks in advance.

SpookyCitrus · September 28, 2020

Laptops take specific batteries they are usually different per model and only take that specific battery type, in my experience they don't have bigger and better versions, you can lookup the batteries model number, typically found on the battery itself and see if it has a different variant but I doubt it will. Unfortunately that's not something that is common. There will be replacements, however, all of them will have the same Amperage and Watt Hours as the stock battery.

TotallyNotGigabit · September 28, 2020

How many cells does it currently have?

Dijon · September 29, 2020

6 hours ago, PacketMan said:

Two things:

1. That laptop is upgradable and, IIRC, you can put 4c/8t CPUs in it (I had the T420 and the T440p) but those are also too power hungry and, basically, heaters so keep that in mind if you plan on upgrading it... You might get 5-6 hours of battery life with a 9-cell battery but once you upgrade it you will lose all that battery life gains

2. There are dozens of brands (good brands) out there, it's a matter of luck, I've used GreenCell batteries before, here's a Reddit post

I do recommend an old ThinkPad to play with Linux, but definitely not with Windows 10. And I said play, not work, it will be a pain in the ass to work and study with one if you are going to need Windows 10 because those are not powerful at all for anything besides Linux distros (and optimized). You can still buy a decent and modern Thinkpad with an i7-8550U for cheap, the T480 are the last "good" ones imo

Fair enough yh I heard about GreenCell many people complain about it not working after a few months but I will definitely look into the T480 or another 9-cell thanks!

Dijon · September 30, 2020

On 9/28/2020 at 11:15 PM, SpookyCitrus said:

Laptops take specific batteries they are usually different per model and only take that specific battery type, in my experience they don't have bigger and better versions, you can lookup the batteries model number, typically found on the battery itself and see if it has a different variant but I doubt it will. Unfortunately that's not something that is common. There will be replacements, however, all of them will have the same Amperage and Watt Hours as the stock battery.

Oh I see yh thats a bit of a problem since most of the ones I have looked up are similar or outright the same