Built in battery questions

battery replacements:
$129 for nonretina mbp
$199 for current retina mbp


I hope they make the battery in the retina mbp removable in the next rev so it goes back down to $129, but there is absolutely no guarantee that will happen.

 

Removable batteries will never come back.

Removable batteries means less space for batteries, means shorter battery life.

Take a look at the iFixit tear downs and see how the batteries are placed, there are a number of battery modules placed here and there using up as much space as possible. This would not be possible with a user replaceable battery.

Heck, when apple went from user replaceable battery to built in the battery life on their macbooks almost doubled, so you can imagine the difference it makes.

I have had my macbook for 3 years now and my battery life has gone from 9 hours to about 5, which isnt too bad considering I use it all the time. It is my only machine. EDIT: 9 to 5 is a little bit of an exaggeration , according to iStat and Coconut battery my batter health is at 81%.

 

Apple non-removable batteries allow them to build lighter and more compact laptops without sacrificing battery capacity (Crzyrio above explains it nicely). Apple notebook batteries are especially heavy-duty, as they are designed to keep at least 80% of their original capacity within first 1000 cycles. For comparison, figures given by other manufacturers are 300 cycles for reaching 80% of the capacity (e.g. HP). In another words, expect Apple batteries to last 2-3 times longer than on your average Windows laptop. The battery on my 2009 MBP still has 85% of its original capacity after 39 month of really heavy use (and I mean it, I really trashed it and never payed any attention to 'good battery practices'). This means that you have to replace the battery only once in 3-4 years or even 5 if you use your machine only occasionally.

 

I agree completely great answer!