Dell laptopbattery -electricity surges killing battery?

hi

My laptop battery is seems to reduce its life in a fairly short period of time. In the US i never had any problem but I'm currently in Asia and it seems like the battery life got cut in half and now its almost dead.

There are several times where the electricity was interupted/fluctuated and i was wondering if that has any impact on the battery life. It's also possible that Dell laptop batteries suck. By May I would have had this laptop for one year (Inspiron6400)

Any ideas?