Laptop Battery Help

Hey, i recently purchased the Acer laptop for 500 dollars. Pretty good specs. The only problem is the battery life. Really weak, fully charged is only or even lest then 2 hours. About laptop batteries, can i just plug in any battery on to my laptop? or does it has to be a specific type. For instance, my sister has a laptop as well, can i take her battery and put it into mine?

Firstly, it depends on the laptop. If you bought a Centrino-based laptop, two hours is pretty poor (unless you're playing DVDs or games, or doing other CPU-intensive activities, in which case it's about normal). A good Celeron chipset laptop should go four or five hours just for light stuff such as word processing and interbutting. If, however, it is a Celeron or Pentium-based laptop (likely a Celeron, since these are the chip of choice for budget models), those processors are not designed for low power consumption and drain the battery faster. Two hours is probably about average for such a laptop. Look into adjusting the laptop's performance to improve battery life - some laptops come with a "speed control" installed (usually its icon can be found in the notification area), which allows you to reduce the power of certain parts (dim the screen, underclock the processor, shut down hard disk after a certan time, etc). And of course, a budget laptop is going to cut corners somewhere - in this case, you could find the overall capacity of the battery (measured in mAh or Ah) is simply less than you would find on a costlier laptop.

As for the interchangeability of batteries, it may be possible if they're from the same company, but don't bank on it. Many components in a laptop are designed specifically for that make and model because there's only a limited amount of space for the designers to work with, and one area laptops vary the most is in the shape of the battery.

Batteries may have their specs (voltage, maximum intensity, capacity, etc.). You can replace your battery with one with similar features (equal voltage, equal or better intensity and capacity) that fits and has the same connector. In case of doubt, don't do it. You may also contact your laptop vendor.

Alright, thanks alot guys.