Or is it round 3 now? I can’t keep up with the release of these high capacity batteries for netbooks nowadays. Basically, we have two sources – from the manufacturers themselves, as well as from third party (mainly China based) battery manufacturers. The former should be safe, although we’ve seen HP recalling a heck of a lot of supposedly faulty batteries lately, while the latter – let’s just say it may be safer to build your own nuclear device! So, we saw one third party one here, for the eeePC, and while I don’t know about your tastes, personally, I find the sight quite disturbing – enough to give me nightmares. Now HP has begun shipping their own extended battery for the HP Mini 1000 netbook (shipping with a default 3 cell battery, which gives less than 3 hours runtime).
The Mini 1000 6 cell extended battery has a claimed run time of up to 6 hours, double that of the standard 3 cell battery. Because of its capacity, it is thick and HP decided to go with some sort of a “lip” design which when put into the Mini will raise the back of the Mini by a slight angle. Check out the pictures below to see what I mean. While HP has gone with a “thoughtful” design, because a raised angled keyboard makes typing easier, especially on small devices, I can’t say the same about its “looks” – it looks positively hideous to me! What about you? The battery sells for US$ 103, approximately RM 367. At that price, I’d rather get a universal external battery pack which power more devices, but that’s just me.
