External Battery for AA1

I balked at the expense and possible questionable quality of after market batteries to extend my usable time for the AA1. Although APC's Universal Notebook Battery 50 does not officially support the AA1, (when I emailed APC they told me that they do not support that model) I took the chance and purchased one for $50 US from Microcenter (microcenter.com). Well this is a thing of beauty, you plug your AA1 power supply (or any power supply you have around) into one side of the battery cable and then plug the other output end into the AC power on the left side of your AA1. The AA1 acts as if it is running off of AC power for about 4 hours and without interruption automatically switched to internal power when the external battery runs out of a charge. The battery comes with two output power setting (AA1 uses the two dot setting) and various adapters to use on different laptops (AA1 uses the K adapter) . I believe this is a superior method to obtain longer battery life for the AA1 for several reasons; 1.) I can use an old Dell power supply to charge up the battery (using the proper adapter) while I use the external battery to run the AA1; 2.) If needed I can use the APC battery to run other laptops/netbooks because it appears to work "universally" well with many laptops if you can find the proper input/output tips; and 3.) It is so inexpensive that I went out and purchased a second one for my wife to use with her Fujitsu Lifebook so she would leave mine alone. A word of caution, if you purchase this battery from APC you will pay between $90 and $100 so look elsewhere if microcenter is out of your reach, but if you need flexibility it might just be the right investment even at $100.

 

That's purely because they are sales people and they do not know anything about technical side of product they selling...

 

Thanks for the interesting report. I don't know anything about batteries and would be a little worried that it could harm the AAO. Once I had a Radio Shack radio nuked by a Colby adapter that I bought at Fry's in spite of following instructions to the letter. Is there anything that makes you feel secure about using this battery?

 

APC is a great company. I have used their UPS backup power supplies for years without any complaints. I've only used the model 50 battery for about a week and I can testify that it appears to run cool while charging/discharging and appears very well made. I've heard bad reports about after market replacement batteries that are available on eBay and Amazon. Since most of these are NOT made by or for Acer I would be very careful about using one of the extended life batteries as you have no idea what quality of battery the manufacturer put into it.

 

Thanks for the response and your advice.

 

I just bought a Lenmar external power port from Amazon ($96) and it is selling at Radio Shack for $119. I have the smaller version for my iPhone and love it. I am hoping this is a good alternative to a second AAO battery since I can't seem to find one at a decent price at any reputable retailers.

 

A friend of mine told me he had found one of these batteries (don't know the model number) on sale at Radio Shack for $40 some odd dollars and asked me if I wanted one since he was returning to the area which was a bit far (he was using it on a Lenovo Thinkpad and said it was excellent). This was about a month ago (before I had the AAO). You might want to call some of your local Radio Shacks that you think might have old stock (I remember him mentioning something about a slight difference in the color of the newer item's box, the one that cost over $100, but the battery itself was the same). If you have time please post the correct mode number that would fit the AAO.

 

I already have the one that was $40 but I do not believe it can power a laptop, I used it as a backup for my iPhone and it will charge other devices with a mini-USB charging port. As I understood that one is for accessories only.

Let me post links for the one I have and the one I just bought for laptops (although I got this one at Amazon for $20 less)

I just bought this one from Amazon
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... ickid=cart

I already had this one (well two actually) for my iPhone
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2767656

 

Oh, he may have made a mistake and purchased the wrong thing, strange because he said it was excellent. Thanks for the link.

 

This is the link to the APC battery I purchased. It's 3600 mAh, which is a lower rating than the Lenovo, but also at half the price.
http://microcenter.com/single_product_r ... id=0248204

 

How many hours extra does it give you with the AAO?

 

I wrote up my opinion here, but bottom line battery life SUCKS!

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8532

 

The external battery give me about 3:30 more computing time.

 

Benmoto1, can you tell me how much it weighs when you get the chance, and the dimensions, roughly, as this information is not under the specifications in the link you provided. I think that three and one half hours more would be perfect for me and am about ready to order it. I hope that the price is still valid as I have searched around and it seems to be the best price in town.

Thanks.

Update: Its out of stock at my local Microcenter.
Update 2: Full Specs from APC