Apple to Charge $199 for Battery Replacement on MacBook Pro with Retina Display

A7ibaba said:

hahaha,everytime something weird pop up out of the sky from Apple,there is always some people who finds it a very reasonable choice.Like they would find it ridicilous ever.They asking 200$ for battery.Really? And thats reasonable? Yea,right.Especial when is not covered by Apple care warranty.I would call that on my scale from insane to idiotic VERY TO HIGH REASONABLE!Riiight. Shut up and take my money,because im retarded.

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You sound quite eloquent in your response.

You obviously have no clue what replacement batteries cost for laptops. If you did you'd understand for a battery of that caliber its quite reasonable.

Not to mention most people will never even need to take advantage of this.

ghettochris said:

am I missing something? you got > 80% after 1,000 cycles, you still had 90%, and even got 300 more cycles. after 1000 your battery is out of warranty. They say nothing of % after 1,000 cycles, just that if you have less than 80% below 1000 cycles they'll fix it. Doesn't matter if it slowly fades after that or drops dead on cycle 1001, you got what you were supposed to out of the battery. From what I heard your battery had a 30% bonus lifespan.

lol that you average around 3 cycles per day. wtf, do you charge up your computer every night before you go to bed then play videos as you sleep until the battery dies? I mean if you bought a new computer, and charged and drained the battery as fast as you could, how long would it take you to get 1300 cycles? seems like almost full time from when the released the 2010 mbp's. A number of days you have owned that machine would help with the lol calculations...

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That's the exact argument I gave. I do use my computer a lot, but it's almost always plugged in. When I called Apple, I explained the mathematics behind the impossibility that my computer had accrued that many cycles. I actually calculated the whole thing out. They only look at what the computer says in terms of the number of cycles and disregarded the logic of the situation. I actually understood, even though I disagreed, because I know the people I was speaking to were looking at a schematic that did not give them the leeway to make a common sense decision.

As for your other question, the battery health was still close to around 90% at 1,300 cycles. I know they advertise 80% health at 1,000 cycles, but what is the value of that guarantee if those numbers are meaningless? When my battery stopped working, the computer simply turned off one day without warning and would not turn back on unless it was plugged in. When I plugged back in, the battery health registered as 0%. Why would be impressed by a battery that is at 80 or 90% health if a battery at that percentage can drop dead? What is the merit of advertising 80% if 80% can mean going to die in the next day?

I'm not saying it isn't possible my battery's life should have expired based on the fact that I used it a lot and I think I had it over a year and a half at that point. But I am saying that I think the claim that you'll have 80% health at 1,000 cycles is kind of meaningless if 80% health doesn't mean you actually have 80% of the original capacity. I'm usually someone who fights for what I think is right, and in this case, although I did not agree that the cycle count was right, I didn't try to get the decision overturned and I just agreed to pay the $179 since the computer had served me well to that point and I know that batteries are consumable. The reporting system is just off though, in my experience.

future of macbook pro (retina) costs more.

Are battery replacements covered by Applecare?

wikus said:

I would hope it takes a while... but Ive always been distant with apple's portable devices after being really badly burned by their 2nd gen ipod. The battery at first lasted 8 hours and in only 8-10 months of usage i got no more than 30 minutes per charge until eventually the hard drive died on top.

thank god for warranty, but i never bought an ipod or the likes since that time.

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Sounds like you had a bum unit. We have an iPad and six iPod/iPodTouches starting with the very first model and have had excellent experience with all of them - all are still in use and do well.

considering my experience with apple getting the new ipad "repaired" this isn't too much of a surprise. Gotta pay to play.

PVisitors said:

Are battery replacements covered by Applecare?

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Rarely. AppleCare and the warranty cover manufacturer's defects to the battery but do not cover normal consumption of the battery (1,000 cycles).

swingerofbirch said:

Rarely. AppleCare and the warranty cover manufacturer's defects to the battery but do not cover normal consumption of the battery (1,000 cycles).

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I realize it's 1 data point, but I've had 1 battery problem with a MBP. I called Applecare and they sent me a new battery with no questions asked. They even overnighted it.

Applecare was nearly expired too, so .. take it for what it's worth.

So in other words Apple is pretty confident about their batteries.

brentsg said:

I realize it's 1 data point, but I've had 1 battery problem with a MBP. I called Applecare and they sent me a new battery with no questions asked. They even overnighted it.

Applecare was nearly expired too, so .. take it for what it's worth.

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Same here. Then again these new batteries don't have the same faults of the old ones.

PVisitors said:

Are battery replacements covered by Applecare?

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if it is defective, yes. If it is consumed. no. That's a nature part of the game with rechargeable batteries and thus not a defect

ouimetnick said:

Apple authorized technician (Geniuses included) would replace the battery with the top case.

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Which is the reason for the higher price as they will have to replace both the battery and the top case.

PVisitors said:

Are battery replacements covered by Applecare?

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Try reading the news article fully and you might find out!

tann said:

Not surprising after seeing the insides! They'll have to do some crazy stuff to un-glue it!

At least their battery life estimates (for me at least) are better than what they claim, my mid-2010 MBP has been through 818 cycles and is at 90% health.

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I've seen 3 unibodies (2 MBP 2009 and one MBP 2010) and all had around 70% battery health around 600-700 cycles.

ouimetnick said:

The battery is glued to the top case, NOT the logic board.

The battery and top case are to be replaced together. Logic board is completely separate.

For those saying the just peel off the battery.. Thats incorrect. I imagine that Apple would require them to be replaced together. Apple authorized technician (Geniuses included) would replace the battery with the top case. Apple's support site states that the battery should not attempt to be removed (separated) from the top case. Safety concerns as you can imagine. The batteries can spark and catch fire if bent. The defective part (top case/battery) is then returned, and they probably have a fancy machine that separates them w/o causing damage. Also, its not glued it, but held in with double sided 3M sticky tape.

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charlituna said:

Which is the reason for the higher price as they will have to replace both the battery and the top case.

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I say BS.

Do you know how much time it takes to get everything out of the Top case/Unibody to actually replace it with a new battery, it will take hours.
You even have to get the display of.
My guess is that the battery is glued with hot glue, they will simply heat it up to lets say 60-70 degrees celsius and will remove the battery and glue in a new one.
If they have to replace the whole top case they would have to do way to much work, if they just replace it with all things inside the serial number would also be different since it is embedded in the motherboard.
They could discharge the battery first(to a hard 0%), Lithium Ion still holds a certain charge even when the computer says it's 0%, it gets cut of below a certain threshold/voltage (3.3 Volt) because if Lithium Ion goes below that threshold it will be broken.
Also the top case/unibody is made of aluminium and too expensive to just replace.

Removed.

Mbpr charge

parish said:

Here's Apple's advice - http://www.apple.com/batteries/ - click the 'notebook' link in the last paragraph

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Thanks for the input read it and clicked on notebook.

ghettochris said:

wtf are you going to do in 2016 with a 2009 mbp? Imagine trying to use one from 2005 now? My last one before this was a 2005 model, so I know it would suck balls. it can't even play 720p video smoothly. The web of today would crush it. Maybe it would be a stand alone word processor or music player or email only something. I get pissed doing normal web stuff on laptops between 3-4 years from purchase (about where you're at right now). sell it on ebay and upgrade. Life is too short to use slow computers.

I'm on a 2008 MBP right now and it's on it's way out this year for sure. I maxed the ram when I got it, have done fresh hard drive os installations periodically, and it still chokes up a little on the web, and dealing with hd video is painful.

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Drop an SSD in that 2008 MBP and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's fast to where you can get an extra year or two out of your MBP.

My 2006 1st gen MBP is a Core Duo 2.16GHz and it still runs great with Snow Leopard. Battery is almost shot (only gets about 45mins with normal use), but it still handles native HD video with no problems. 1080p Flash Youtube videos push the MBP's limits and makes it run hot, but it still runs great. I dropped an SSD and honestly I would still use it if the video card was better and could handle more than 3.3GB RAM for my virtual machines. The ATI x1600 is too slow for my Starcraft/Diablo 3 needs.

Also my brother enjoys the 2006 MBP and he mainly uses it for college papers and occasional iTunes/Youtubing/Netflix. Maybe your 2005 was a iBook/Powerbook with PPC chipset which I can understand not working well it today's world. I have an iBook from 2004 which can barely run as an iTunes/file server.

JohnDoe98 said:

I don't know what you are doing with your 2008 MBP, but my 2007 MBP does everything you described here without a hitch and is still very fast. It runs ML with a breeze, and that's only on a 2.2 ghz Intel core 2 duo with 4gb of RAM and a 7200rpm HDD. Sounds like you are exaggerating it's performance to justify a new purchase. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I'm just pointing out that there are some 5 year old machines out there that don't drop a beat for 1080p videos and anything the web throws at them.

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I agree with the 5 year old machines still working well. I have a 1st gen 2.16GHz MBP from 2006 still working great. It became sluggish a while back so I dropped a SSD and gave it to my brother who loves it as a basic laptop for music, web, youtube, netflix, etc. I'd still use it if it weren't for my needs. It will become out of date when Apple stops supporting Snow Leopard, but I can always install 32bit Windows if I need a supported OS.

Excuse my ignorance but what do they count as a cycle?

I get into work every morning and sit a desk and have the power plugged in all day. I use a laptop mainly for portability but for the most part it is always plugged into the wall.

Soy Cowboy said:

The new battery is $200. The old battery was $130. Taking a dollar off the price is a psychological trick to fool people into thinking the price is lower than it actually is. As a reporter rounding up the price would be more instructive to you readers. Also, less annoying. Please don't participate in the scam.

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And less accurate. We can all round up and do simple subtraction.

Please don't participate in an accelerated dumbing down of our already sliding media. There is nothing wrong with precision and accuracy.

steve-p said:

Maybe design a handy carrying handle for that car battery and a connector for the laptop and save yourself some money then.

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lol. I know it's not a great analogy/comparison--I was just using the idea that a car is bigger, more powerful, and expensive than a laptop. In all fairness the cost isn't something to worry about too much as it likely wouldn't be a problem until a few years after using the machine, by which time a new PC wouldn't be out of the question anyway. The overall pain in the butt with upgrading the computer is what's annoying me a little bit.

covertsurfer said:

Excuse my ignorance but what do they count as a cycle?

I get into work every morning and sit a desk and have the power plugged in all day. I use a laptop mainly for portability but for the most part it is always plugged into the wall.

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I'm not so sure but you can easily check your cycles by downloading coconut battery. I think it may be a full charge and a discharge.

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/

I think the higher price is because the replacement might come w/ the macbook back included since it's glued to the battery.

You can get the cycle count from the Apple menu, just not sure what is defined as a cycle and how that would effect me and my working conditions

chrono1081 said:

Not to mention most people will never even need to take advantage of this.

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Aye, my MacBook was about 4 years old before I needed to replace the battery. Having to shell out 200 notes in about 4 years time...no biggie.