Game Boy Micro Questions

[megasilverx1]

So I've owned a Game Boy Micro for a little over a half year now and while I enjoy using the tiny console from time to time, I noticed that it's not really holding a charge for longer than 1-1.5 hours, which given that the Micro is about 16 years old now, I'm not surprised that the lithium battery is starting to go. Looking for a replacement battery for the Micro has been a little bit difficult since the ones I see listed on Amazon seem to be a very mixed bag. The reviews are either: "This replacement battery worked fine" OR "Don't buy this battery! It fried my Micro." So my first question is, for any other GB Micro owners who have had to replace the lithium battery, is their a particular brand you would recommend? One that actually fits and didn't fry the unit.

My second question (or maybe more of an observation) is why are link cables for the Micro so expensive? And more importantly, why do essentially no third party/off brand link cables exist? I understand that the Micro didn't sell that particularly well, but I mean...really? $130+ for a damn link cable on ebay? The only one priced reasonably is what appears to be a third party link cable seller from Australia, but that's a Micro to Micro link cable, when what I'd really like is a GBA link to Micro link cable. I didn't see anything on Amazon or AliExpress either. I attempted to make my own link cable and got pretty far with it, but was having too much trouble soldering the wires to the Micro side since the pins on the Micro side are much closer together than they are on the GBA side. Maybe I'll get lucky and find an GBA to GB Micro adapter (OXY-009) and a Micro to Micro cable (OXY-008) at a thrift store in the future? This isn't a major problem, I can simply use my original model GBA or GBA SP to do trading, but still, I'm really surprised no off brand cables exist for the Micro outside of charging cables.

[bizzgeburt]

Only thing I know about the micro, is, that it was kind of released as a special collectors item short before Nintendo DS was released. I for myself didn't know that this kind of GameBoy existed till I had one in my hands! Guess it flew under the radar of many 3rd-party suppliers as well, just like it kind of flew under the radar of us gamers oO ?
That's just my suggestion, I don't have much valid data on it.
Finding a charging cable wasn't that hard, I never tried to get hold of a link-cable for it. But as it technicaly is a GameBoy Advanced, can't U just use standard GBA-cable??

[megasilverx1]

Update: I ended up getting a third party battery; a 750 mAh high capacity one by Makho since it seemed to have the best reviews. It was pretty easy to insert into the micro after shaving two tabs on the side off with a box cutter blade, but putting the battery cover back on was/is more of a pain than I was expecting. With the wires folded and the foam on the underside of the battery cover removed, the battery cover still doesn't want to fit quite as nicely as it did with the stock battery. I know it's because this replacement battery is about 1.5mm thicker, but woof. Anyway, the Micro turns on and seems to be working fine.

Still don't have a Micro link cable, but whatever. I'll just stick to one of the other GBA models for the rare times I need to link consoles.