DO NOT BUY NON-OEM CHARGERS!
DO NOT BUY NON-OEM CHARGERS!
I bought a replacement battery that was not OEM off eBay. After about 4-6 months of use, the thing nearly blew up on me. The battery got so hot it could've started a fire. Seriously, spend the extra money, its not worth the risk.
If you're buying a replacement make sure it meets the safety standards and it is approved for use. I'm going to be buying only OEM batteries/chargers from now on.
This should say "Don't buy shitty non OEM chargers". There are plenty of reliable non OEM brands that sell perfectly reliable chargers. Anker for example.
Which reminds me that I need to look into what all options there are. I'd like to get a backup to the oem that came with mine, but I've never looked to see what all is out there.
Same with batteries tbh, though I got a bigger oem one at the same time I bought the t480.
I absolutely support this for batteries, largely because nobody reputable sells replacement laptop batteries. But I feel perfectly safe with Anker chargers, and a few others. I also mostly use a USB-C monitor these days, and have no problems after rather limited use so far. But I'd be hesitant to buy some of the cheap no-name monitors for use in the same capacity, nor the cheap Chinese charger of the week off Amazon.
I mean many chargers/power supplies have and follow standards, ESPECIALLY if its a USB-PD compliant charger. batteries have a lot of wild west aspects to them. Bundling both in the way OP has it is not the way to go.
In the past I've had a different experience with OEM chargers dying on me and off brand ones surviving longer but that was in a place with frequent power cuts. In general your advice is probably best to follow but I've also used non-OEM replacements without any bad experiences for many different devices.
I got a 3rd party replacement battery for my t420 about a year ago. Maybe I should keep an eye on it...