Is it worth replacing the battery

[Slammy1]

A friend has an older laptop (Athlon 1400+, puts it in the 2001-2003 era). It's an old thing, but it plays multimedia well. It will play a DVD for 20 minutes then shut down from a low battery. Watching the battery go down it seems fast (based on the rate on drop, I'd have estimated he had an hour and a half if it was a linear drop), but there's a sudden drain with it. Looking at the cost of new batteries, he'd pay around $50 (shipped) to replace it but I didn't want him to spend the money unless I'm pretty sure it will fix the issue. Am I missing anything here? Thanks for the help.

 

[Aarondeep]

Sounds like a bad battery to me.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: aarondeep
Sounds like a bad battery to me.

Dittos!

 

[dnuggett]

We all agree; it's the battery.

 

[TheStu]

You guys are all wrong... it is obviously the battery.... psh amateurs

 

[Slammy1]

The battery you say... Sorry for such an obvious question, I've put together a fair number of desktops but don't have much laptop experience. Thanks for the help!