Replacing the Battery in a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th

I’ve been using my ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th for over a year now, and since I run it on battery every day at work, the battery wear… actually got worse faster.

A few days ago I noticed the wear was already at 20%. That in itself isn’t a big deal — the real problem is that it keeps cutting out around 20% and telling me it’s dead. That I can’t tolerate, so I went straight to eBay and bought a new battery.

The photo above is the old battery — part number 01AV431.

This is the new one, part number 01AV494. Looks pretty fresh — I figure it’s probably the battery assembly for the X1C 6th, but whatever, they’re compatible.

After installing it I found it uses LGC cells. Word online is that LGC cells are good quality, much better than SMP, on par with Sony. Here’s hoping.

But right after the swap the wear showed 99.5%, and I have no idea what’s going on there. After a few charge cycles the wear started climbing back up. Not sure I get this whole routine.