I upgraded recently to a Lenovo Thinkpad T61, from an IBM T42. Good road warrior that I am, I had the T42 accessoried to the hilt, notably with a bunch of extra batteries to last me through the long flights across the Atlantic. Since the new machine was also a Thinkpad, you’d think I would simply reuse the accessories in the new machine, right?…

Thinkpad Batteries

Wrong. The power supply can’t be used because it has a different output voltage – you can’t argue with that. The 3M privacy screen can’t be used because the screen’s a different size – fair enough. But the batteries?!!ThinkpadBatteries2

The batteries are very similar, but their plugs differ. Intentionally.

Look at the photos to compare the Bay Batteries of the two machines; exactly the same dimensions, same voltage too… but the plug is just different enough to prevent reuse. Hard not to harbor cynical thoughts about the reason…  🙁