As caregivers, we all love a good deal, especially in this economy. Shopping at one of the various dollar stores (The Dollar Store, The Dollar Tree, The 99 Cent Store, etc.) can shave quite a bit off your monthly household and care giving budget.
People like to buy cheap computers, it's somehow coded into our DNA. The problem with this practice is that often netbooks are cleared from stock after a few months of unsuccessful attempts at selling it for a higher price. These notebooks come with battery stored in the right circumstances but for too long.
Why lithium stock-ion battery? Because it provides high energy density, runtime, and is light in weight. To run a power-sucking laptop, a battery with high energy density is required. The runtime of a laptop battery is based on what sort of applications you run. If you run basic applications for writing, reading, copying, chatting, etc, then your laptop battery runtime will be high compared to running a complex application that has a huge number crunching requirement.
When it's time to buy a new lithium ion battery, be sure you're buying one that's new (as in recently produced). Just like fruit has a shelf-life, so do batteries and just like you want to buy fresh produce, you also want to invest in "fresh" lithium ion cells. Check the date-code on the battery or packaging to ensure you're not buying a pack that's been degrading for a year on some shelf.
The weakest aspect of any smart phone would be battery life. You need to know the extent of your Lithium battery stocks Ion or suffer the consequences at the end of the sale. Most manufacturers offer some guidance on this department but only to the point they are most comfortable to share. What they wouldn't share to you is that you should never recharge your phone. You pick up the phone; saw that it is just around 30%. That is OK, leave it as it is. You juice it up fast, the device will not recharge as efficiently once you do it again. You need to drain the battery first from the stock power and then do the recharge.
All power tool batteries degrade over time and Lithium mines Ontario ion batteries degrade more rapidly over periods of un-use. Accordingly, use them often and when you're not in the trenches of a project, try to use them at least once each month.
So how long does it last? Anything from 3 to 9 years if you search this question on Google. Everyone has a different opinion. In my experience about 6 years is the average. It's basically a large watch battery and is constantly supplying a trickle of power to the motherboard. Just like many of my watches the battery can last 2 years or up to 6 years (Fossil watches don't seem to last long for me for some reason). How long was the PC in the warehouse before it was delivered? And, how long was the motherboard in the warehouse before it was installed in the PC?
Grooming items are iffy but worth checking out. Shampoo is a decent find as are scrubbies/loofahs. Items like Chapstick and Vaseline can often be found there and my very favorite soap (Yardley oatmeal and almond) is almost always available at the dollar store. Nail files, packages of combs, tooth flossing sticks are of value. Skip the cotton swabs (too flimsy and could be dangerous), make-up (due to lack of regulation), and make-up remover pads (can I just say UGH!?).