What would you do without them? Seriously, if every single battery of every single type were suddenly zapped out of every single thing that it operated, what would any of us do?
If you have your PC case off you will see something on the motherboard that looks like a small thick silver coin. That is the battery. There are other types of battery used on newer machines (Ni-Cad, NVRAM) but these much less frequently found and so I won't discuss them further.
Why is this important? If you have a relatively new PC the only problem you will get are error messages relating to the clock on start up. No big deal. If your PC is older then a low battery could be a nightmare. I had a PC which once cobalt mine every few months refused to boot. Rather than take the PC in for repair or start replacing parts myself the first thing I did was look at the BIOS settings. It was soon obvious that the BIOS settings were corrupt (wrong bus speed). I put a volt meter on the battery and sure enough it was reading 2.2 volts.
In the past few years, hybrid car sales have taken off. Despite being only 1.5% percentage of the overall car sales market, hybrid car sales are still seeing phenomenal growth (a 28% increase over last year).
Obviously, ICE are powered by the gasoline you buy when you fill up at a gas station. The electric motor/generator is powered by a large (and by large, I mean large and heavy) Lithium battery stocks pack. Most hybrids on the road today have large Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery packs somewhere near the trunk, or under the seats. (Read about the Lexus Hybrid battery pack).
If the battery in Lithium mines Ontario your computer is a nickel metal hydride or a nickel cadmium then it will experience memory degradation over time. To lessen the effects of this, make sure that you run the battery down to empty every time. Also ensure that you fully recharge the battery every time you recharge it.
I could easily have spent a fortune replacing the motherboard, the memory, the processor etc when it all came down to 2 dollar battery. What's more is these batteries are easy to get. What you need is a CR2032 available at most hardware stores like home depot and I've even seen them sold in Safeways. Of course every reputable computer store should stock them. Just check to make sure that your PC uses a CR2032 before you go to the shops!
There are a couple of more considerations about choosing your cell phone battery which we cover with a later post. And don't forget the holidays are coming up so make sure you take a look at various face plates and extra batteries to enhance your gifts!