You can hack the bios to remove the DRM and use 2012 aftermarket batteries, or replace the cells. I dumped my x230, not worth the horribly priced aftermarket (if you break your screen it’s almost as expensive as another laptop and you’ll need to repair it). I love my newer x250 with no DRM for WiFi, 2x SSD slots, cheap batteries that can hotswap, cheaper 1080p IPS replacement screens, and 11hr+ battery life. The x230 already lost the classic keyboard, the new one is fine, and the speakers are retardedly still on the bottom but it’s much louder.

Ah yeah, the unlock to do this is called "1vyrain", right? https://github.com/n4ru/1vyrain/ Friend was telling me about it as he accidentally ordered a non-Lenovo battery and was considering sending it back but also considering trying this "unlock".

That looks very nice, before you had to flash the bios yourself, I never heard of it. I just got lazy and never flashed the bios, I'll set time to use this. Makes the battery replacement much less painful, thank you!

No problem! Yeah it looks a bit scary to me so I'll only try it if I can really dedicate some time and focus on it, and only if I really want to install the mod. I think this same mod is needed if you want to use X220 keyboard on the X230.

Thinking of how the MNT Reform designed their battery solution[0], I wonder if it's possible to build a "battery enclosure" where you can just drop in a bunch of LiFePo4 cells, so you can just purchase commodity batteries. It seems super wasteful to buy a complete new battery every time because it's just the cells inside that lose energy capacity...

[0] https://mntre.com/reform2/handbook/parts.html#battery-packs

Wonder what the benefit of battery packs are? Why not just have 18650s directly insert into the laptop?

I've had the same issue, I've replaced the battery once but I've found that if you're running any type of workload then ~1 hour is the best you can hope for. Luckily I rarely need it mobile for more then an hour, but I might look into modding the battery.

That's the reason I jumped to the T430. Same CPU, but can get a 70++ battery for 6-9 hours worth of battery, but kinda the same concept. The only bad thing, you need to mod the keyboard for an t420 for the vintage thinkpad experience.

I ended up just buying a new battery for my t540p. I was reluctant to because I didn't think it could possibly last much longer with the abuse it's been subjected to, but, it's still going strong a year later.

They’re so much cheaper than the 2013 ones. I love the new battery platform.

I just carry spare batteries in my bag and swap them as needed. I'm hoping to be able to do the same with my next phone.