In answer to your question about the differences between 6-cell performance and 9-cell performance, the 9-cell lasts longer between charges, and so when the inevitable decrease in battery performance occurs, people are less likely to notice it as much. For example, if your starting battery life is 90-minutes on average, a 35% decrease in performance will give you less than an hour of time until you have to plug in again. When your average life between charges is 2.5 hours, that same decrease of 35% will yield you more than 90 minutes life after the decrease. Most people won’t notice the latter as much, and therefore will give it better reviews.

Regarding battery life in general, there is a threshold within the year the battery is under warranty of how much performance can degrade and still be considered “within spec”. If you notice significant decrease in battery life under the same load within the first 6-12 months after purchase, contact our support, as your “working” battery may have technically “failed” and require replacement. The one year warranty is prominently placed on the page you linked, and if you’re dissatisfied with the batteries performance within that time, I would encourage you to contact us and tell us what’s happening.

I’d also have to agree that more people using technology abuse it than don’t. The funny thing is, Dell doesn’t manufacture these adapters. They’re actually manufactured by a prominent adapter maker, one that also makes AC adapters for many of our competitors, including the one you mentioned. Since our site has a review function and many others don’t, it isn’t really possible to do an unbiased comparison of customer reviews. It is rather noteworthy that our website handles millions of orders, and these adapters are identical in design across most of our notebook lines, so it’s strange that so few people actually review the product. 40ish people out of millions of sales is a very low percentage.

Overall, the design has been successful, as it hasn’t been changed in several years. That being said, future changes are being discussed by engineers here at Dell, as noted in a post I recently wrote on Direct2Dell:

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/11/29/36860.aspx

The survey ended on 12/31/2007. I have yet to see the design change suggestions, so I really can’t speak to that. I, for one, suggested a change in the reinforcement of the cable, primarily to help minimize damage during the abuses I see virtually every Dell owner inflicting upon the wires. I hope other people had the same idea.