Regardless of which type of battery you have, it's important to properly care for your laptop battery, in order to get as much life out of it as possible.
Even if the battery case looks the same, you cannot just upgrade to another battery technology unless your laptop has been pre-configured from the manufacturer to accept more then one type of battery type, since the recharging process is different for each battery.
Conditioning, which means fully discharging and then fully charging the battery? Should be done at least every few weeks, as it maintains the fully capacity of the laptop battery. Some authorities claim that this is not necessary with li-lon batteries, which others maintain that it's a good idea to condition all laptop batteries regularly, rather than simply leaving they plugged into the wall at all times.
 Your laptop battery should never be stored in an area that drops below50 A F or rises above 95A F this means that your laptop should not be left in the car or in a storage area that is not climate controlled,. Also for extended storage of six months or more the laptop battery should be discharged to 50% capacity and removed from the computer, a battery stored for an extended period of time at fully capacity may lose the ability to charged fully, , while a battery stored in a fully discharged state may never be able to charged again at all.
Quick Tips for Laptop Battery Care and Usage:
Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - Most laptops have shortcut keys to instantly disable wireless networking when not in use.
doesn't play unnecessary computer games, music or DVD movies - Multimedia activities drain laptop batteries.
Disconnect all external device like PC Card modems, Fire wire, USB devices and optical drives. Use the notebook touchpad instead of an external mouse.
Adjust your screen brightness - Dimming your display saves battery power.
Tweak Windows Power Options - Choose a Laptop power scheme that turns off the notebook monitor and hard disk after 10 minutes of inactivity.
Decrease or mute the Laptop Speaker Volume.
Turn off all scheduled tasks.
Turn off Auto-save features in Microsoft Office and other applications.
If you're PC has a built-in wireless card, turn it off or disable it when not in use.
Programs that are run from a CD or DVD can be copied to and run from the hard drive, which typically consumes less power than an optical drive.
If you do not use your laptop for extended periods of time (a week or more), remove the battery pack from the laptop.
Do not expose the battery to high heat or freezing temperatures. Do not leave your battery in your car in the summer. Hot batteries discharge very quickly, and cold ones can't create as much power.
Make sure to plug your laptop charger adapter into a UPS and not directly into a power outlet or surge protector.
If you have a nickel-metal hydride battery, completely drain and recharge the battery once a month to maximize its capacity to hold a charge.
Fully charge new battery packs before use. New pack needs to be fully charged and discharged (cycled) a few times before it can condition to full capacity.
For laptops that work as Desktop Replacement, the battery should be re-installed every 3-4 weeks and allowed to fully discharge.
Leaving a battery in a laptop while using an electrical outlet for long periods of time will keep the battery in a constant state of charging up and that will reduce the life cycle of the battery.
Smaller Is Better
Consider an ultra portable or thin-and-light rather than a desktop replacement laptop. Smaller displays use less power. Going with a hard drive that runs at 4200rpm uses less power than a hard drive running at 5400rpm
Power Control
Use as little power as possible by adjusting laptop settings. Use the Power Options to set to the laptop to go inactive after a set amount of time. Set adjustments so that the display goes off first, then hard the hard drive stay active a bit longer and store the system content's to the RAM.
Turn Down the Lights
Adjust the display brightness to a lower setting, make sure you can view the screen without squinting. You can also adjust the brightness of the display to suit the conditions you are working in.
Watch Your Battery Use
Keep an eye on your battery consumption and know how much power you have remaining. Use the battery  power icon on the system tray or you can purchase batteries which have LED gauges on the outside of the battery itself.
Charging It Up
Whenever you have access to a power source, charge the battery. Before you leave on any trips, fully charge the batteries, especially if you don't know where or when you might have access to any electrical outlets.
Get another Battery
Some laptops are capable of running with two batteries. If you cannot run two batteries, check with the manufacturer to see if there are high capacity batteries available. External batteries can also be used to extend operating time.
Drain the Battery
The first time you use your laptop with battery power, allow the laptop battery to completely discharge. Do this at least twice and don't try to charge the battery when it is half discharged.
Clean Batteries
Keep the battery and its connections clean and free of debris. Clean your battery terminals on a regular basis using a cotton swab with rubbing alcohol on the tip.
CMOS Battery Check-Up
The backup battery is a CMOS battery which is a secondary battery to power the clock and can drain a main battery if it is dead. Check with your User Manual or manufacturer's web site for the location of the CMOS battery and where to get a replacement.
Turning It Off
Don't run programs or devices that you aren't using. Remove PC cards and turn off Wi-Fi software. Using your laptop to watch movies or play games will drain the battery quickly as well.
Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (But not while it's on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.
Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn't crucial when you're on battery.
 Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.
Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.
Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they're not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.
Keep the battery contacts clean- Clean your battery's metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn't save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC's state as it is, and completely shut itself down.
Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it's cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.
Set up and optimize your power options - Go to 'Power Options' in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the 'max battery' for maximum effect).
Don't multitask - Do one thing at a time when you're on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3's, set your mind to one thing only. If you don't you'll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!
Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you've got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.
Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.
Prevent the Memory Effect - If you're using a very old laptop, you'll want to prevent the 'memory effect' - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.
Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the auto save function. MS-Word's and Excel's auto save functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.
Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks
Check List:
Lithium-based cells provide at least 300-500 charge/discharge cycles. Avoid frequent full discharges
Lithium-based cells should be given a full discharge/charge cycle once every 30 charge cycle.
Oxidation is your enemy.
Heat is your enemy.
Cool at 40%. Lithium-based battery packs are best stored at 40% capacity in cool places.
Remember, take care of your gadgets, and your gadgets will serve you well.
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