Hello All,
My 4 year old Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop needs a new battery. My question is this: should I spend the $140.00 and get the Dell battery or is it safe to buy a non-Dell battery online for $87.00. That is quite a saving but is it the best route to go?

Hi. I bought a replacement battery for an old Sony Vaio and it worked fine. But there's no way to definitely say universally that the batteries are the same.

I'm usually the first one to say not to waste money on name-brand things, but when it comes to batteries for notebooks, I'd actually err on the side of safety and the the battery from the manufacturer of the notebook--in my opinion they are held to higher standards than independant retailers. If your dell battery lasted quite some time (seems as if it did), and you don't plan on upgrading your notebook anytime soon, then spend the extra money and get the Dell battery. If you aren't planning on keeping the notebook for much longer, then save yourself some money and get the generic one. That's just my opinion though.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (@2.6 GHz)
2x1GB OCZ Spec. Ops. PC3200
ASRock Dual939-SATA2
Antec TruePower 550 watt PSU
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
300 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
120 GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon x1950 Pro