About the batteries of MacBooks

[TheCyberEntity]

Firts of all, english is not my birth lenguage, so I'll try to expres myself as good as I can.

I'm thinking to buy a MacBook Air or an iMac, but I think the iMac will last more years (maybe 6-8 years) because it has no battery as the MacBook Air, so there is no limitations in that aspect.

I'm use to be no limited about the battery because I have and 8-year-old PC (HP). It is awful to use it today. It's very slow, the fan has been very noisy since the 4th year, etc, but it still works and of course there is no need for charge.

So, I'm concerned about how much will last the battery of the MBA and if it is convenient to replace it once the battery is no longer useful to extend it for maybe 4 years and reach 6-8 years. Or I should go for the iMac?

Thank you!

 

[rewardsguy]

Apple has a battery replacement service for portable devices. You can either bring your device into an Apple Store or mail it in. For the MBA the cost is $129 USD. I believe you can get 1000 full charge/discharge cycles before the battery needs replacing, about 2-3 years of use. More info can be found here: https://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

 

[macs4nw]

Firts of all, english is not my birth lenguage, so I'll try to expres myself as good as I can.

I'm thinking to buy a MacBook Air or an iMac, but I think the iMac will last more years (maybe 6-8 years) because it has no battery as the MacBook Air, so there is no limitations in that aspect.

I'm use to be no limited about the battery because I have and 8-year-old PC (HP). It is awful to use it today. It's very slow, the fan has been very noisy since the 4th year, etc, but it still works and of course there is no need for charge.

So, I'm concerned about how much will last the battery of the MBA and if it is convenient to replace it once the battery is no longer useful to extend it for maybe 4 years and reach 6-8 years. Or I should go for the iMac?

Thank you!

If portability is not a priority for you, you may want to seriously consider an iMac. You get more computer for less money, and you won't have to worry about or deal with, battery replacement(s). Also in addition to the added screen real estate you're getting, fwiw, AppleCare for desktops is about $80 less than for laptops.

Another thing to consider is that while laptops give you freedom of movement, they are by nature more prone to physical damage, and therefore have a shorter average lifespan than desktops, but this clearly depends a lot on the owner as well. Good Luck choosing!

 

[Boyd01]

I believe you can get 1000 full charge/discharge cycles before the battery needs replacing, about 2-3 years of use.

I think you can get more than that from your battery. I sold my 2011 MBA to a friend when it was 2 years old and the battery life was still excellent. I have a 6 year old MacBook Pro and the battery just died a couple months ago. The capacity certainly went down over the years, but it was still usable. After 5 years I was getting perhaps 45 minutes run time on that machine.

My 2013 MBA was purchased in July 2013. The charge cycle count is only 57, so I think the battery should last for quite awhile at that rate.

 

[gnasher729]

I think you can get more than that from your battery. I sold my 2011 MBA to a friend when it was 2 years old and the battery life was still excellent. I have a 6 year old MacBook Pro and the battery just died a couple months ago. The capacity certainly went down over the years, but it was still usable. After 5 years I was getting perhaps 45 minutes run time on that machine.

My 2013 MBA was purchased in July 2013. The charge cycle count is only 57, so I think the battery should last for quite awhile at that rate.

Especially if someone considers an iMac instead, I'd expect the MacBook to be connected to the charger a lot of the time, so you'll get nowhere near the 1000 chargers (although I heard of some misguided people who actually have their MacBook on their desk all the time, use it through the day without charger until the battery runs out, then charge it over night).

 

[Serban]

the 21.5" base model iMac is a little more pricy than MBA but all has Quad Core and better GPU and more RAM as standard.
As for Macbook Air you will have a long long battery life until you will exchange it because now they last like 12 hours of light usage so a lot less charges over the years, probably half