What makes a laptop battery specific to a model?

Posted by ryeguy on Super User See other posts from Super User or by ryeguy
Published on 2009-10-27T02:39:16Z Indexed on 2010/04/17 15:54 UTC
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laptop

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battery

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specifications

I have an old Toshiba laptop (pentium 4) whose battery just crapped out. Looking at the battery, it says it's a PA3251U. Looking online, this thing is going for about $100! I don't want to spend probably 50% of this machine's value on a battery replacement!

My question is: what makes a laptop battery specific to a model? Do I really only have this one battery to choose from, or can I look for any battery that matches some certain attributes (like number of cells, voltage, etc)?

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