Tablet battery replacement

Last Updated on August 6, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

Can you replace a battery in a tablet? That’s a good question. It’s almost always possible. The question is whether tablet battery replacement is practical. Some companies make it really easy to replace a battery, and some make it really hard.

tablet battery replacement
This is what the battery connector on an Asus Memopad looks like. It makes changing the battery pretty easy since you just have to plug a new one in.

The batteries in my kids’ first tablets, made by Asus, were pretty easy to change. Asus made tablet battery replacement just a matter of opening the tablet, pulling up on the connector, and swapping the battery. Opening the tablet was harder than changing the battery. Finding the right battery was probably the hardest part of all, since they seem to be a bit different.

My kids wore out the USB ports on those tablets, so I replaced them. This time I bought the cheapest decent tablet I could find: a Digiland tablet from Best Buy. That battery isn’t designed to be replaced. The battery is soldered to the motherboard, and I don’t recommend soldering to batteries. The heat can cause them to explode. If you can find a suitable replacement, snip the wires from the old battery, then splice those wires onto the wires on the new battery instead. There’s no danger in that. It’s just more hassle than plugging a new battery in. But Digiland batteries aren’t hard to find on Ebay.

When it comes to Apple Ipad tablets, Apple doesn’t want you replacing batteries. They want you to send in your old tablet and $105, and they’ll send you another one. You can change the battery yourself, but you’ll spend $50-$90 on the tools you need and the battery.

The ironic thing is the closer the battery is to the extremes of the price spectrum, the harder it is to replace the battery. Sometimes it’s cheaper, or at least less hassle, just to buy another tablet.

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