This isn't the first time that we've heard this [0] and it probably won't be the last: Laptop vendors are warning of a battery shortage. The cause of the shortage, this time around, was a fire at one of LG's South Korean chemical plants, and users of Dell, HP and Asustek laptops could be left in the lurch when the time comes to procure a new battery. It looks like Dell already has raised the prices of their batteries in light of the shortage and other manufacturers could follow suit in the coming days--if you've been procrastinating on ordering that shipment of replacement batteries, you might want to make haste.

For more on the shortage:
- see this Gizmodo article [1]