Dell Inspiron 1545 Battery Life very poor

Good luck.  I inhereted my kids inspiron 1545.  I get 1 hour max out of a battery.  I even swapped out the hard drive for a solid state drive hoping that was the problem, and it still stinks. 

Either there is some software bug that nobody has fixed, or Dell engineering is just horrible nowadays.  I suspect the later.

I, too, have had trouble with my dell  inspirion 1545 laptop battery.  It recently died on me -- completely -- a few days ago.  I have a warranty on my pc until 2014 but, unfortunately, the battery is the only thing that is NOT covered.  I was told that the battery is under warranty only one year.  This battery is way more expensive than most pc batteries.  Why, when its life is so poor?  Radio Shack would sell me one for $85 but Dell told me it would be a reconditioned battery and would not be covered by a Dell warranty.  The Dell technician told me to take the battery out of my pc immediately and to use the power adapter with the battery dead would "ruin my pc."  He tried to sell me a new battery but I said, "Why would I buy a new battery from Dell for $135 (6 cell) when I can get a new pc for about $400?  So he sent me to his supervisor.  She told me something different.  She said to leave the battery in the pc if I use the power adapter but only in emergency situations because that's all the adapter was intended for.  To continue to use the pc with the dead battery out would be worse than using it with the battery in because "it would damage the motherboard."  She finally talked me into buying a new battery for $135, assuring me it would be covered for one year and everything else on my pc would continue to be covered until 2014.  If I bought a new pc, I'd lose this warranty so I guess it is worth $135.  Also, documenting my dead battery, I was afraid Dell would say I neglected the pc and caused damage by using it without a battery and just a power adapter or I damaged it by using it with a dead battery which damaged the pc.  Then they wouldn't cover the warranty if something else went wrong.  Now it's going to take a week to get the battery via Fed Ex.  I'm most upset that the battery gave me no warning it was failing, then it failed in two years and the warranty didn't cover it.  Also, that this battery costs more than other pc batteries.  Why, if it's so awful -- which I think it is?

2-3 years is the best you'll get from any lithium ion battery - which is why no one warrants them for longer than 12 months.

And if you think the Dell battery is expensive - have you checked Apple's prices?  Or Sony's?

I had the same issue with my Inspiron but did find a better 3rd party battery that uses newer more advanced cells to pack about 30%-40% more power into the same 6 cell form... so depending on what I doing (cruze the web mostly), I now get about 3-4 hours of battery life on average. The battery I got is rated at 5800mAh/63Wh vs the stock battery 4800mAh/48Wh.  The cells that are used are from Panasonic   (Advanced NNP according to the marketing). After about 1 1/2 of use I still get well over 3 hours battery life. 

Here is the battery I got and would give it two thumbs up :emotion-21::emotion-21:...  http://www.safebatteries.com/inspiron-1545-battery-5800mah.html

Cheers,

Bart