I just bought a refurbished Lenovo Yoga 920 (Full HD / i5 / 8GB) from GraysOnline eBay account. Everything seems to work fine, although on full charge - it says I only have 3 hours of battery life left, which is a far cry from the all day 9-12 hours of real world use most reviewers have achieved.
All day battery life is important to me. Is weak battery life normal on refurbished laptops? Should I bother with asking for a replacement, or is it a common enough issue that I should just return it?
The laptop has sold out on eBay, so I'm unsure if they have replacements. If the diagnostics suggested below don't turn up anything meaningful, I might return it and buy a brand new laptop for a bit more money.
If you bought at auction then goods are sold "As Is." If you used 'Buy it now' they will let you return the goods for refund within 30 days for change of mind.
The battery is generally not warranted in any computer refurbishment, it is going to be the original battery in whatever state of use or abuse it is.
That's interesting, I would have thought they'd replace the batteries.
The laptop I purchased allows returns within 30 days of purchase, it's looking increasingly likely that I will
I had a similar problem on a Toshiba laptop. Lesson learned.
Ah, that's a shame. Can I ask what you ended up doing?
Nothing. I just put up with it.
In real life you will never get the advertised battery life from any laptop and it will always be lower. You can always use a battery analyser tool and in most cases find out how many charge/discharge cycles it has undergone (a very good indication of use) and the designed capacity vs actual charging capacity (gradually drops with use)
Here are some tools you could use - https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-tools-analyze-laptop-battery…
Hey, thanks for your reply :)
Yeah, for sure - Lenovo claims 15 hours of battery life, but reviewers were able to get about 9-12 hours out of it. 3 hours is nowhere near where it should be. I'll have a look through the tools suggested. Thanks again!
just do a battery report in windows 10 and it will show how mnany charge cycles and estimated capacity versus the full capacity when new.
It would be worth doing a full charge then discharge to see what actually happens. It can report strange battery life in Windows if it's been on and off a few times during refurbishment.
Or (as mentioned above) create a battery report using "powercfg /batteryreport" on the command line. Lots of good info there, especially the current capacity vs design capacity.
And if you're unhappy be prepared for a long return process with grays online. I've had to get eBay involved on both returns, so keep photos and evidence!
Good luck!
Thanks so much for the advice, will try my luck with the tools and see how I go.
I'm having problems with a 'refurbished' Lenovo laptop from Graysonline. Their wildy useful advice is to reset windows. It's a physical problem with USB and USB-C connectors. As someone else said above, lesson learnt.
Batteries aren't expensive or difficult to replace yourself if you want to have a go. Even a square Lipo cell is straightforward if it's not the removable Li-ion packs like older laptops have.
It's not like you've got much to lose if you're already at 25% of expected battery life - but as stated, a replacement or return can also be a simpler solution.
Yeah, I think I'll run some of the diagnostics suggested above and if it doesn't seem like an easy fix, I might just return it.
The other thing to beat in mind IMHO is that your current (LOL) 3 hours is the best you'll see, how quickly that falls is key also. If (and I have no technical expertise) the battery has gone down that far (from 9) could it decline relatively quickly?
Yeah for sure, it's definitely a concern. If I can't find a relatively quick fix, I might return it and cough up the extra for a brand new laptop.
I bought a 920 from graysonline.
It gets over 10 hours watching Netflix /YouTube. Not sure about word processing but battery life is as good as my old macbook pro.
I had an issue with my WiFi card when I first got it. I sent it back and they replaced the WiFi card and that fixed it. So I think it is certainly worth asking them.
Also to get those hours I have performance on minimum and I don't go crazy with brightness/audio.
There's a setting you switch off in Windows that also improves battery drain while sleeping. Basically reduces it down to a couple % per day. Whereas before it was a couple % per hour.
Also my laptop legit had one cylce when I got it. So it was essentially brand new.
Check the number of cycles yours has and the time on time (I think you can check this).
Check the lenovo software for this info.
If they are not deep cycled the battery life will shorten quickly. If it's charged many times life will shorten over time. I would contact them and at least try to get a better battery as they may have many.