NuPower Battery

by Chris Saribay • 12/29/2005 at 10:34 AM

As most already know, computing on the go is a great thing. Being productive where ever you are is indeed a quite powerful attribute, but as your laptop ages, you soon find you’re only as good as your battery. As such, you can probably tell that this editor’s 12” PowerBook battery was on the severe recline decline, or rather, barely even held a charge.

Not to fear, however. Newer Technology and Other World Computing have come together and created a series of replacement batteries, notably, those that offer the prospect of longer battery life. Apple’s batteries fresh from the factory are good and well enough, but to say that they retain a strong charge is not exactly an accurate statement. In this review, we’ll be testing Newer Technology’s NuPower High Capacity Battery for 12” Aluminum Powerbooks, but the company also offers similar replacement batteries for other Apple products.

The NuPower battery mimics Apple’s batteries in most aspects, for the most part, matching the fit and finish of the unit. Build quality presented well, for the exception of the status monitor on the bottom of the battery. Unlike Apple’s equivalents, the button to access the LED charge monitor is lodged deeper within the casing, making it more difficult to press down. This could be interpreted as a good thing or a bad thing, but for me, it proved to be a challenge to check the charge of the battery. Thankfully, this is the only real issue with the battery.  While not a problem, another notable thing to point out is the use of a black foam foot instead of bucking the trend Apple’s grey plastic ones. This foam foot seems much more stable than Apple’s, and much less prone to fall off. While I would have preferred to see grey foam instead of black, the use of (any color) foam greatly increases the unit’s physical stability, which is never a bad thing.

Now to the batteries’ performance. Out of the box, Newer Technology and OWC carefully warn you to correctly calibrate your battery, more less stating to leave the battery charging for several hours (uninterrupted) and then fully running down the battery at least once (again, uninterrupted). Following these instruction is vital to eeking out the best performance, and not doing so could lead to you having a battery worse for wear.

Now, let’s get this out of the way: there is no scientific way to clearly define how long a full charge on this battery will last. Many different factors have an impact on endurance, and my own computer usage will likely not mimic yours. In our testing, we used our demo machine in fairly intensive, resource heavy ways. This testing notably called for constant paging of the swap file and consistently high use of the processor. That said, Newer Technology promises up to a 13% increase in battery capacity, and this battery delivers exceedingly well. Depending on usage, we were able to get 32 to 40 minutes more battery life, actually exceeding Newer Technology’s specifications. This may not seem significant, but when you’re on the road, every minute matters. This 4800 mAh battery works very, very well.

As an added benefit, over a longer period of time we’ve noticed that the Newer Technology battery seems to age much more gracefully than Apple’s does. This is great news for this editor, who sees this battery lasting very long into the future.

Buying Advice: If you demand the longest charge out of your batteries, Newer Technology’s NuPower High Capacity batteries seem like a good fit. On the other hand, if you prefer Apple products exclusively, prices are comparable and if satisfied with Apple’s batteries, you could go either way.