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The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

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Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#22
I've only recently started collecting data for my Early 2011 MBP, but I'm starting to see a pretty steep decline. From 72% capacity down to 58% in a little over a month feels like I might be nearing the end of life for my battery.

  date       | capacity   | loadcycles
  ------------------------------------
  2013-07-08 | 4964 (72%) | 527
  2013-07-25 | 4566 (66%) | 534
  2013-08-05 | 4432 (64%) | 537
  2013-08-16 | 4016 (58%) | 542
Anyone have any advice to stretch its life longer, or is this pretty typical?

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#24

Wow, this is an excellent article! Nice visualization of the battery life. I am quite nervous about the battery sealed inside my own new Macbook. Is it better to attempt to use the battery as much as possible in order to get a new one before the 3 year Applecare Warranty expires? Or to maniacally keep the machine plugged in if at all possible? Or simply not to care? The price of a replacement will be high, and I wond…

I believe Apple charges $199 for a battery replacement, which is definitely not cheap, but might be worth it if you were still happy with the rest of the machine. I'm not sure how long it takes them to do it, though. I'd expect they'd continue to offer that service for quite a few years to come.

As other posters have mentioned, it seems to me like the glued-in batteries don't rapidly decline like the old ones did. I don't have any numbers, though, just impressions.

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#28

Wow, this is an excellent article! Nice visualization of the battery life. I am quite nervous about the battery sealed inside my own new Macbook. Is it better to attempt to use the battery as much as possible in order to get a new one before the 3 year Applecare Warranty expires? Or to maniacally keep the machine plugged in if at all possible? Or simply not to care? The price of a replacement will be high, and I wond…

I believe Apple charges $199 for a battery replacement, which is definitely not cheap, but might be worth it if you were still happy with the rest of the machine. I'm not sure how long it takes them to do it, though. I'd expect they'd continue to offer that service for quite a few years to come. As other posters have mentioned, it seems to me like the glued-in batteries don't rapidly decline like the old ones did. I…

imo very conscious decision on part of Apple (and PC makers) to provide short battery half lives, rather than spending more money to deal with the size and heat/cooling constraints of laptops, especially the thin lightweight variety.

not only saves them money short term, but helps push users to new versions before they really need to jump...

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#29

Wow, this is an excellent article! Nice visualization of the battery life. I am quite nervous about the battery sealed inside my own new Macbook. Is it better to attempt to use the battery as much as possible in order to get a new one before the 3 year Applecare Warranty expires? Or to maniacally keep the machine plugged in if at all possible? Or simply not to care? The price of a replacement will be high, and I wond…

I believe Apple charges $199 for a battery replacement, which is definitely not cheap, but might be worth it if you were still happy with the rest of the machine. I'm not sure how long it takes them to do it, though. I'd expect they'd continue to offer that service for quite a few years to come. As other posters have mentioned, it seems to me like the glued-in batteries don't rapidly decline like the old ones did. I…

Apple batteries cost no more than competitors' batteries, and that includes getting them exchanged. Sure, it's annoying you can't do it yourself, but that's about the extent of the downside.

Of course you cannot get third party batteries … but surely no one would get those for laptops amyway. (Well, some batteries are not yet glued in, so those can easily be replaced. But i don't think getting third party batteries is very wise.)

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#30
One other possibility; does the "battery health" metric actually mean the same thing it did four years ago? My 2012 MBA is showing 92% capacity, and seems to last about as long as it did when new. My 2007 MBP shows ~70% capacity, and lasts about an hour; it lasted about four hours when new. I'm not convinced it's that meaningful a metric.
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