Defective battery?

[Amad3U5]

I have a 2012 13" MBA w/ i5 & 4GB RAM.

Like many of you, I was very disappointed by the battery life. With brightness on minimum and Bluetooth off, I'm only getting a mediocre 3.5 hours of internet browsing (no Flash). Also, my full charge capacity has been quickly falling; it started at 6700 mAh, and after a month and a half of usage has gone down to 6300 mAh. From this, a few questions came to mind:

1: Is my battery defective, and will Apple replace it if I bring it in to a store? If so, can I bring it in to an Apple Store aside from the one from which it was bought (I bought it in the US, but live in the UK)?

2: How easy is it to replace the battery yourself? Also, what is a trusted retailer for these kinds of things?

3: What are some tricks to minimise battery deterioration? (Please do not state the obvious such as turning down brightness, turning off WiFi when not in use, etc...)

Thanks in advance.

[justperry]

How many cycles did the battery get?

1. Depends on the cycles, can't tell yet

2. Edit: removed this after pointed out it was wrong.

[MultiFinder17]

Originally Posted by Amad3U5

I have a 2012 13" MBA w/ i5 & 4GB RAM.

Like many of you, I was very disappointed by the battery life. With brightness on minimum and Bluetooth off, I'm only getting a mediocre 3.5 hours of internet browsing (no Flash). Also, my full charge capacity has been quickly falling; it started at 6700 mAh, and after a month and a half of usage has gone down to 6300 mAh. From this, a few questions came to mind:

1: Is my battery defective, and will Apple replace it if I bring it in to a store? If so, can I bring it in to an Apple Store aside from the one from which it was bought (I bought it in the US, but live in the UK)?

2: How easy is it to replace the battery yourself? Also, what is a trusted retailer for these kinds of things?

3: What are some tricks to minimise battery deterioration? (Please do not state the obvious such as turning down brightness, turning off WiFi when not in use, etc...)

Thanks in advance.

1. No, it is not down to a point that they would right-out replace it. If its capacity drops to under 80% with a low number of cycles, then they will consider it.

2. It's pretty simple, so long as you can keep track of some screws. Check iFixit.com.

3. There aren't really any tricks beyond what you asked that we not mention. So far as overall battery longevity is concerned, don't leave your laptop plugged in all the time for days on end. Run it off the battery from time to time.

Originally Posted by justperry

2. Not possible, it is glued to the body, look on iFixit.com, you can find teardowns there.

Nope, it's just held in with a few screws just like all of the past MacBook Airs. See here.

[justperry]

Originally Posted by MultiFinder17

Nope, it's just held in with a few screws just like all of the past MacBook Airs. See here.

My bad, somehow I thought it was a rMBP.

[Amad3U5]

Originally Posted by justperry

How many cycles did the battery get?

1. Depends on the cycles, can't tell yet

2. Edit: removed this after pointed out it was wrong.

I'm at 35 cycles.

----------

Originally Posted by MultiFinder17

1. No, it is not down to a point that they would right-out replace it. If its capacity drops to under 80% with a low number of cycles, then they will consider it.

2. It's pretty simple, so long as you can keep track of some screws. Check iFixit.com.

3. There aren't really any tricks beyond what you asked that we not mention. So far as overall battery longevity is concerned, don't leave your laptop plugged in all the time for days on end. Run it off the battery from time to time.




Nope, it's just held in with a few screws just like all of the past MacBook Airs. See here.

Thanks; I'll be sure to check this out.

[justperry]

Originally Posted by Amad3U5

I'm at 35 cycles.

That is low, I am not saying you've got a bad battery, we just don't know how they behave, it might level but if not and it keeps on dropping you should contact Apple.
Especially if it drops under 80%, It should have 80% for up to 1000 cycles, that's what Apple says.

[Amad3U5]

Originally Posted by justperry

That is low, I am not saying you've got a bad battery, we just don't know how they behave, it might level but if not and it keeps on dropping you should contact Apple.
Especially if it drops under 80%, It should have 80% for up to 1000 cycles, that's what Apple says.

If the original maximum charge capacity is 6700 mAh, then I am at 91% after 35 cycles . I'm going to calibrate it to see if the readings fix themselves.

[imac5]

I've got the same MBA as you except with 8 GB RAM. I've had it about 2 months now.

I'm definitely getting longer battery life of a charge (5-6 hours, more if I start shutting down wifi/bluetooth) but I've also noticed that my capacity has dropped to ~6300 mAh with only 41 load cycles.

I'm not letting myself get too concerned about it now, since it was as high as 6500 a week ago and it seems to fluctuate somewhat even throughout the day. If it keeps dropping at this pace then I'll start worrying but for all I know it'll just sit at 6300 for the next 50 cycles.

Also, about your 3.5 hour battery life, are you doing any serious downloading over wifi? I've heard that heavy wifi usage is one of the more power intensive activities for the MBA.