Third-party battery for 12" PowerBook G4?

[zen]

I gave my old 12" PowerBook G4 to my parents-in-law, and they're in need of a new battery.

I had already replaced it once with an Apple battery, but despite callibration and careful use, the new battery lasted only a year and now is almost completely dead. I've read lots of reviews of Apple PowerBook batteries, and nearly all of them talk about the very short lifespan.

The 12" PowerBook has a particular problem in that there is no on-board minibattery to power the ROM, etc, so with a dead battery, every time you boot up the time and date are reset, etc etc.

So, are third-party 12" batteries available? My parents-in-law have moved to Australia, so are there any Australian sellers, or can a battery be shipped in? Obviously there is the Australian Apple store, but they only stock Apple-branded batteries.

Cheers!

 

[Everlast]

Sorry to hear that you have got a bad experience with the pervious apple battery. I just wondering could you still able to take the battery to Apple for repair?

Personally, I wouldn't recommend any third-party battery other than the original product's manufacturer. I'm not sure the capacity of the PowerBook G4 battery, but I'm more concern about the safety issue, and repair service.

 

[zen]

Really? I thought third-party batteries were a long-running and well-established business?

 

[skinniezinho]

I've heard good thigns about this ones.
Don't know about shipping..

 

[zen]

Ah, NuPower, I've heard of them. I've found an Australian store which stocks them. Thanks very much!

 

[MistaBungle]

Could you let me know what the performance is like? I'm currently in a similar situation where I get very little from my battery and am looking for a quality replacement.

 

[DavidG328]

Could you let me know what the performance is like? I'm currently in a similar situation where I get very little from my battery and am looking for a quality replacement.

Same here, I'd prefer not to purchase an Apple one...seeing as how short the life on them are.

 

[TDM21]

I guess my battery is an exception to Apple's quality. After 59 months and 394 cycles my battery still holds 75% of the original charge. If I were to buy a third party battery it would be from NuPower though.