Customer Reviews
Surprising "feature" 
2008-01-26
My battery died (literaly, would not work at all) on my thinkpad z60t. While waiting for the replacement to arrive, I bought this unit. The unit did NOT mention my laptop on the list of supported laptops, but I called APC and they said it was supported.
When I got it home, I found out that it did not come with the appropriate tip for my laptop. A quick call to APC solved that problem - their customer service ROCKS. I received the right tip via FEDEX a couple of days later (3).
Now, I've got it charged, and am happily using it (with my battery OUT of my laptop). When I noticed it getting low on charge, I decided to plug up my charger (nice design, you can do that while the unit is hooked to the laptop), and my laptop TURNED OFF - ARRRRRGH! It seems that when you plug, unplug, or change voltage, the battery cuts voltage to the laptop. I guess that would work OK if you had a partially charged battery connected, but in my case, I was relying on this battery for my entire power source. THAT SUCKS.
I'm really reluctant to use this without a fully charged battery, because I don't want to charge a laptop battery with another battery.
My assessment - Limited usefulness since it cuts power when you hook up the power adapter. I'm stuck with this unit. I just can't recommend this, despite the cool design and stellar tech support.
Piece of Junk 
2007-12-28
It provided 45 mins at most extra power supply (and that was for word processing only...forget about video). It tended to drift into sleep mode and power down which was annoying. I cant prove it but I also think it may have damaged my laptop battery. After about 9 months the thing died and the company would not honar the warranty.
Do not buy this, throw your money down a well instead.
Gives me three extra needed hours for my power hungry Toshiba desktpop replacement laptop! 
2006-11-22
To say my laptop is a power hound is an understatement. My Toshiba Satellite P100 17" desktop replacement laptop has Duo core 1.83 GHz processors and its battery life is rated at 2 hours and 18 minutes. But I rarely ever get over 2 hours with light wordprocessing use, and only 90 minutes of light web surfing with Wi-Fi enabled. Needless to say, the short battery life is a serious issue when traveling with this laptop.
To address this problem I had basically two options. The most obvious option was to buy an additional internal battery from a Toshiba resller. There is a 6,000 mAh replacement battery for this laptop which should last 50% longer than the laptop's 4,000 mAh stock battery. The second option was to consider a universal external laptop battery. After careful consideration, I went for the universal external battery option since it would not require me to park my laptop in hibernation mode in order to switch batteries - a nuisance in an airplane.
Understanding laptop battery capacity requires just a basic understanding of volts, amps and watts. To compare batteries one must first understand that battery capacity is best measured in watt-hours (Wh).
So my 4,000 mAh (milli-amp-hour) or 4 amp-hour internal battery which operates at 10.8v has a capacity of 4 x 10.8 = 43.2 vAh or watt-hours (Wh). This provides me with 2 hours of light word processing use with Wi-Fi disabled. My requirement was for a battery that would give me 3 hours of word processing time. Therefore the watt-hour requirement for my external battery would be 3/2 times 43.2 which is about 65 Wh.
The second condideration is whether the universal external battery would meet the voltage requirements of the laptop.
For this, the output voltage specification of the universal external battery must match the output voltage specification of the laptop's DC power supply unit (NOT the internal voltage specification of the laptop battery).
The voltage specification of my laptop's DC power supply unit is 15V and 6amps (or 15 x 6 = 90W). Now 90 watts is the PEAK power specification. Laptops run at usually at about a third of the peak power or less, which would be about 30watts (or 15V and 2 amps).
After doing a pretty thorough search I came upon a few options within my price point, including Electrovaya and APC. I was not too happy with the reviews I had read of Electrovaya. I have used APC products for many years and its a solid brand that I could trust. Thankfully the APC UPB60, with its 65Wh capacity and 75W steady output with 90W peak, met my requirements perfectly.
The design of the APC UPB60 is interesting in that it uses your laptop's power supply brick to charge its battery. It is very versatile and has a switch to select 15, 16, 18, 19 or 20V. The current output ranges from 4.9A at 15V to 3.5A at 20V.
It comes with adapter pairs (labeled as "A/a", "B/b", etc.) for a wide range of brands and models of laptop. I found that the "D/d" adapter pair was the correct one for my Toshiba Satellite P100, altough my particular model was not listed in the APC specsheet since my laptop is pretty new.
While the "D" adapter which connects the APC battery to the laptop fit perfectly, unfortunately the "d" adapter which connects the laptop DC power supply to the APC battery was a VERY tight fit. I do not know if I damaged the adapter by forcing the fit, but my laptop power supply would just not charge the battery. (The APC battery has an input specification of 15 - 24v and 4.9A. Perhaps the 6A capacity of my laptop power supply is too much). Fortunately, I was able get around this problem by using the power supply from an older laptop to charge the APC battery - so this no longer became an issue.
The APC battery has 4 indicator lights indicating a charge level of 25%, 50%, 75% and - you guessed it - 100%. The indicator lights are normally off to conserve power, and you can see the power level by pressing a button. When the capacity drops to 10% or less an amber light comes on, informing you that its time to save your work.
I found the optimal way to use the APC battery was to use it with your laptop's internal battery already fully charged, otherwise some of the APC's power would be diverted to charge your internal battery, which is not an optimal use of battery power. Once the APC's power has run out, it automatically switches off and you see your laptop's battery indicator appearing in your Windows task bar. When not using the battery, the cables must be disconnected or else the battery will slowly drain.
According to the APC own specification on the carton, the battery life is 6 hours on an ultra-portable and 3 hours on a desktop replacement, assuming light use. From my own tests it delivers just that. It adds just about three hours of additional time to my laptop!
The APC UPB60 is not the lightest external universal battery but is light enough at 1.8lbs (including the cable) that you would barely notice the additional weight. It is built tough and feels pretty secure. APC has definitely done it right in providing very secure connections and insulation, making you feel safe with this battery. It's slim form factor makes it very easy to slip into just about any laptop case, including a laptop sleeve.
To say I am pleased with this battery is an understatement. I wouln't be caught traveling without it.
Finally, why the 4 star rating and not 5? Well I took off 1 star for weight (it's about 0.5 lb heavier than some of the best alternatives out there - but I'm not complaining).
NOTE:
If you are a Dell user, try to order to APC UPB60-CN model, which is the Canadian model, instead of UPB60. The UPB60-CN model includes adapters for Dell laptops. If you order the UPB60, you would need to request APC to send you the Dell adapters, which they will do for free. But why bother if you can get the UPB60-CN?
