The ICF-C318 has a nice sleek finish of white gloss, and its compact design is beautifully crafted to match any interior without taking up too much space. It's very handy and easy to use, and with the dimensions of 155 x 82.8 x 151.5mm, you won't have any problems fitting it on your bedside table with the lamp, a bottle of wine, and your favorite pocket book. It's also extremely lightweight with a mere weight of 1.2 pounds, easy enough to carry to different rooms, and even to different places if you're out for travel. However, it does depend on a power supply, but the cobalt ontario canada battery back-up serves great as a savior for power outages and plug problems.
Deterioration is a function of temperature and charge level. Don't make the mistake of storing the battery fully charged, as that is the state where it breaks the fastest due to heat. Charge it to take it out and put it like that on the back seat of your car avoid direct sunlight and preferably put the mini lithium facts notebook on a firm flat surface while operating it.
ONickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) - Popular battery about 1-2 years ago. They are lighter than Nickel Cadmium batteries, but heavier than Lithium batteries. These should be cycled once in a while for optimum performance.
Avoid using replacement that has been on lithium bettery stock for a while. During storage the battery can lose much of its capacity through internal resistance, which damages it and lowers the maximum capacity.
Briefly relating back to overall size... many lithium 18650's will differ ever so slightly in length (measured in millimeters). This is mainly due to an added protection circuit. The circuit helps to prevent the battery from over-discharging, since Li-ion cells can easily become damaged if their power is drained below a particular voltage. The protection circuit also prevents the cell from being over-CHARGED as well. These cells are very sensitive. They must be handled carefully, gently, and as described above, must never run-down too far, or be charged over and above their threshold. They can actually explode if severely mistreated!
Today, many of the latest computers have a fast recharge feature where you can recharge 90 percent of the battery power by charging it for around one hour. The balance 10 percent is recharged slowly. If your laptop has this facility, do use it. This helps to extend the life of the battery. However, do not recharge the laptop battery until it has less than 30 percent charge remaining.