“Since the user cannot replace the battery, how much should the user expect to pay to have a certified technician do the job?”
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I'm a technician (not 'certified'), and generally would charge my clients around $25 plus the battery cost. This model is a little trickier than most, and I might charge a little more. But I would not recommend anyone pay someone more than $50 for this task...certified or not. Note that if you take care of the battery...it can outlast the useful life of the laptop (5+ years). I tell this to all my clients after I've worked on and optimally tuned-up a new laptop for them. First, keep the battery charged all the way up when possible. This means do not use the battery down to something like halfway...the let the laptop sit in the bag for several days, weeks in this partial state of charge. These batteries do not like it, at all! After you're back from where ever you HAD to use the battery, plug it into the charger right away...and leave it like that until you need to go somewhere there's no charging capability. Second, these batteries cannot overcharge! I don't know how some people got that notion in their head...but it's an excuse I hear too often for not leaving a laptop plugged into an power outlet. All laptops regulate the charge, and when they're topped off...the charging stops. But after a period the battery will self-discharge a relatively tiny amount, and the system will add a little juice to top it off again. In fact, I tell all my clients and friends: Avoid using just battery power unless you truly need to! Sometimes I use just the battery in my boat (checking the weather), or car, or outside on a porch or patio where an outlet is too far away. But as soon as I'm near an outlet, whether I'm still using the laptop or not...I plug it in. Flaunting the portability by using it at the kitchen table on battery-power only is borderline neglect...especially if you just close the lid after using more than let's say 10% of the battery and not coming back to it until the next day or so...without recharging. Do stuff like this often enough and you're just asking for it. Yeah, it can be like $100 for the battery and at least $50 to replace it. I have clients who only use their laptops for when they travel...and some of them would have a DEAD BATTERY IN WELL UNDER A YEAR of being brand new! They'd get back from their journey with a substantial portion of the battery used up, and would just let the laptop sit somewhere until they needed it for travel again. That could be weeks or months. Some would check for, and charge up the battery before going out the door so they knew that had a 'full charge' beforehand. But the damage was done, capacity has been crippled. That battery simply won't hold as much energy as it did before....period. How much capacity was lost depended on how low the battery was and for how long. One final thing. Some say to do this right after getting a new laptop (or a new battery for it), and that is to 'exercise' the battery. This means to use the laptop until the battery is nearly dead (try not to go below 10%), and then IMMEDIATELY charge it all the way back up...without interruption. THEN, do this again almost right away, and again for a third and maybe fourth time. You can if you want, but I've usually spread it out over some time...like after 50 hours or so of general use, especially where the battery has been used a bit (and of course charged right back up). After many partial discharges and recharges...I'll let it almost go flat, and charge it up right away. I've done this for years, not only with laptops but with Ipads and Iphones, and most any device that has a lithium-based battery. I've never had to replace a battery before the device's useful life was up. By this I mean that a laptop for example, with it's single-core 2-GHz processor, outdated bus speed and limited memory upgrade, etc., just ain't cuttin' it any more.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.You would have to check with the certified technician. You might want to call your local Best Buy and talk to the Geek Squad. Prices obviously will vary.
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