I threw this question out on the underscore mailing list today (typos corrected - at least you can do that with blog posts):-

i'm gutted that my powerbook battery isn't eligible for replacement due to the recent recall, as i'm only getting about an hour out of now, so looking for a cheap replacement. Looking on ebay there are two cheapskate options :-

1. supposedly genuine apple batteries, coming from china
2. non-apple batteries

anybody had any good/ bad experiences with either of these options? anyone been stung for import duty with stuff coming from china? anyone lost any body parts to an exploding battery?

I was then pointed in the direction of coconut battery, a handy little app for analysing your battery. It shoes that mine has about 40% of the capacity that it had when it was new - translates to about an hour of use on a full charge. So it it obviously needs replacing - anyone out there able to recommend or warn me off the cheap batteries I found on ebay, as opposed to forking up twice the price for a genuine replacement from apple?