My day-to-day laptop is a Dell XPS 13 9360 that I bought from Dell Outlet in January 2018 for $636. It has been fine and battery life has been good, only complaints are the nasal inspection camera placement below the screen (fixed on more recent models), and keyboard isn’t as nice as a Lenovo. Stuff from Dell Outlet comes with a “refurbished” sticker but otherwise seems like new and has the full warranty, so if they have what you need it seems like a no-brainer over the Dell retail website. If you can wait, watch for a good coupon that can give you 20% off the base outlet price.
Anyway, recently the right side of the trackpad hasn’t been clicking and the pad seemed tilted. I thought the trackpad was broken somehow and bought a replacement part for $9 on eBay. On closer examination not only was the trackpad tilted but the keyboard was bulging on the left side. A little web searching showed this to be a common problem on the XPS 13 caused by the cells in the internal battery pack swelling (common enough that I wonder why there hasn’t been a class action lawsuit about it!)
The battery pack is Dell part #PW23Y and a new Dell replacement was like $130. There are plenty of 3rd party batteries on eBay and Amazon for $30 and up but there were a lot of negative reviews of those not being recognized or crapping out after three months of use. I found an eBay listing for a original new Dell battery pulled from a laptop for $50 and ordered it. But what they sent was a generic Chinese clone that I could have gotten for $30 some where else. I left an appropriately negative review and returned it for full credit through eBay. But my review never showed up – looks like if you return something you don’t get to leave a review, which seems to protect scammers like my seller – they could have a 50% return rate from unhappy customers and you’d never know it.
Next stop was Amazon. Battery sellers on Amazon are a hive of scum and villany, you can’t believe any claims of original parts and the words “OEM” and “Genuine” have been redefined to mean “3rd Party” and “Knock-off”. Most of the clones are completely generic and brand-less. My theory is that it’s better to buy from a 3rd party that is making an effort to establish their brand than buying a “OEM” battery from a no-name place that will disappear as soon as they get enough complaints, only to pop up later with another humorously unpronounceable store name. So I bought a battery from Dentsing for $46 that seemed to get good reviews. The battery they shipped had a sticker with their logo instead of it being printed on the battery like their Amazon listing showed, but even that is more effort than most of the sellers will expend.
Replacing the battery is straightforward. Unscrew the eight tiny T5 Torx screws around the perimeter of the back side of the laptop and don’t forget the cross-point screw under the silly XPS logo flap. Then use a plastic pry tool to separate the metal back plate (start with a corner and work your way around the outside).
Once open, remove the three flat head screws with a hex driver. Carefully unpeel the black fabric tape that attaches various wires to the battery (try not to let the tape stick to itself once removed). Then gently pry the battery connector out of its housing using something hard, pointy, and plastic.
Pop the new battery in, being careful to get the mounting loops over the plastic bosses before attaching the screws – this took a little persuasion on my battery. Then retape the wires to the battery as best you can, and carefully push the battery connector back into the housing (using the hard pointy plastic tool again).
It is tempting to want to test the battery before putting it back together, but don’t try to open the laptop screen without the back cover on. The back cover holds the screen hinges which are under a lot of tension, and trying to open the screen can make them pop out and possibly damage the laptop case or screen border. Ask me how I know this.
Then put the back cover on by pressing around the perimeter, and attach it with the 8+1 little screws. Now you can open the laptop and test it. My battery had 50% charge and turned on without issue.
However, the click button on the trackpad didn’t click anymore – something was blocking the movement of the pad. So I took off the back panel again, removed the battery screws, and gently looked under it while it was still attached. I couldn’t see anything amiss and the button clicked when I tried it, so I put it back together, making sure the mounting loops were all the way down on the screw bosses, and testing the click after each screw was attached. I got the whole thing back together with a functioning mouse button this time – not sure what was wrong but some misalignment might have been pressing the battery against the back of the trackpad and keeping it from moving.
After reassembly I did a full charge and then a full discharge – they say you should do this to reset the battery monitoring limits. I turned off the screen power saver and it took like 12 hours for the battery to discharge with the screen on and Windows 10 running. So the battery life was good at least on the first charge. With the new battery both sides of the trackpad button work and the keyboard is no longer bulging on one side – success so far.