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Newertech PowerBook 12 Batteries Discontinued

grockk

grockk

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 16, 2006
365
5
Just an FYI, batteries are starting to become discontinued for the powerbooks. If you have any desire to get a second battery, ebay will soon be your only place to go.

I had a Newertech fail after 18 months so they are not for certain either, but after reading the "Just how far can we go?" thread, even user replaceable parts are starting to dry up.
 
It is sad to see a shortage of Powerbook batteries, but you have to remember that this is just one company in particular that decided to stop making batteries. There is still a decent demand for Powerbook parts, as seen in this community, and as long as that demand is constant, supply will be. We will go on, despite the hurdles! :apple::)
 
JohnnyH1012 said:
It is sad to see a shortage of Powerbook batteries, but you have to remember that this is just one company in particular that decided to stop making batteries. There is still a decent demand for Powerbook parts, as seen in this community, and as long as that demand is constant, supply will be. We will go on, despite the hurdles! :apple::)
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"Oh yeah... PowerBooks go on... long after the building of batteries is gone..." There will always be someone making them for the next couple of years and I highly doubt the Chinese will stop any time soon either.
 
They have nice capacity increases over the cheap Chinese batteries, but at $100 each, I couldn't justify it for a PowerBook that's itself is worth $100 at most. The $15 battery I bought is just fine and even came with a misspelled warning card for entertainment value.
 
556fmjoe said:
They have nice capacity increases over the cheap Chinese batteries, but at $100 each, I couldn't justify it for a PowerBook that's itself is worth $100 at most. The $15 battery I bought is just fine and even came with a misspelled warning card for entertainment value.
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Don't you just love the warnings that come on products today for the "safety" of the user. My personal favorite is the little icon that looks like an onion that is supposed to mean you shouldn't put a bag over your head.
 
grockk said:
Just an FYI, batteries are starting to become discontinued for the powerbooks. If you have any desire to get a second battery, ebay will soon be your only place to go.

I had a Newertech fail after 18 months so they are not for certain either, but after reading the "Just how far can we go?" thread, even user replaceable parts are starting to dry up.
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I love my PowerPC Macs, but I have to face reality a lot of times. Scarcity of parts is going to be a fact of life from here on out. It's unavoidable. More PowerPC Macs will begin to fail and there just won't be any parts to fix them.

As useful as PowerPC Macs still are to me (and they really are), there hasn't been a PowerPC anything (desktop or laptop) since 2006. So for PowerPC Macs, the best we have are 8 years old and that is an eternity in the computer world! And for me, that age is even larger, as mine are from 2001 and still work nicely.

As time wears on, more will fail and there won't be immediate resources to fix it. It's inevitable. Those that have finally went to Mac Heaven will be sold as a system "for parts" so we can cannibalize what is working and do something with what doesn't.

With PPC laptops, and I hate to say this, it's either nostalgia or a need to keep it going as long as possible driving it. As for me, my next laptop will be the mid-2012 MacBook Pros (the last ones that have user-upgradeable parts) or a Windows laptop of my choosing. I can't imagine myself getting a PPC laptop anymore, but that's just me. I have enough software that would be a PITA to run on it now. Your mileage will vary.

Now I'm really hoping to get another few good years out of my old PowerPC's, though. It's going to involve a few decisions and one final push by going back to OS 9 (and the tons of abandonware it offers) full time when 10.5 is no longer a viable specimen. That time is coming soon for my G4 Digital Audio, as 10.5 offers nothing anymore that 9.2.2 cannot. My G5 tower, though, will remain on 10.5 until the bitter end, as it's still a monster to me.
 
MysticCow said:
My G5 tower, though, will remain on 10.5 until the bitter end, as it's still a monster to me.
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It's my belief that as time goes on, and the PowerPC architecture continues to age, Power Mac G5s will be the ones that the community will mainly use. This would not only be because they are built like tanks, but because they truly are still monsters, and capable of a decent web-browsing experience. The only downside to a G5 is the insane power-consumption, but considering their low price, it is something that can be dealt with.
 
PowerMac G5 with dual processors would still be enough for my use, but single processor G4 machines like this PowerBook are painfully slow to be actually used seriously, atleast for web. For reading email, editing text, etc. why not.

As for batteries I'm fine with el cheapo Chinese ones (well, they're all Chinese) because it makes no sens to pay more for battery than the whole machine is worth. My PowerBook has a battery which lasts only for couple minutes but I haven't even bothered buying a replacement, even Chinese one.
 
JohnnyH1012 said:
It's my belief that as time goes on, and the PowerPC architecture continues to age, Power Mac G5s will be the ones that the community will mainly use. This would not only be because they are built like tanks, but because they truly are still monsters, and capable of a decent web-browsing experience. The only downside to a G5 is the insane power-consumption, but considering their low price, it is something that can be dealt with.
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I halfway agree with you. G5's will be used for 10.5. Those G4 and G3 systems (well, the G4's that can boot into 9) will have one last gasp under Mac OS 9, since it does have Classilla and tons of abandonware.
 
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JohnnyH1012 said:
That is about how I imagine it will play out.
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That's my plan, anyway.

Next month, my G4 goes back to 9.2.2. My G5 will stay on 10.5. I can imagine more making their final stand in 9.2.2 as time goes on.
 
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MysticCow said:
I halfway agree with you. G5's will be used for 10.5. Those G4 and G3 systems (well, the G4's that can boot into 9) will have one last gasp under Mac OS 9, since it does have Classilla and tons of abandonware.
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Well you could always keep the G4s on 10.4. 10.4 was a really great OS for G4s. 10.5 is still pretty good on faster G4s (the last PowerBooks, Power Mac G4s). 10.4 still has TenFourFox which is still in development so I think 10.4 will be the best option for all these machines as the time goes on, although 10.5 will still be a great idea on machines that can handle it.

This discussion reminded me to get batteries for my new DLHR 15" so I picked up a NewerTech off of eBay on a BIN.
 
It's just they are a major 3rd party battery maker.

I have a NuPower that failed after 18 months and one that is still going strong. I also have a plastic one from ebay and it works fine, but not sure how long it will last. I used the original apple battery until it held just 1%!

You can still find newertech batteries on Amazon, but not sure how much longer.
 
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