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bobright

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
4,817
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I have a family member that has an old iPhone 5. Given how old it is it seems as if it doesn't hold a charge like it used to when it was new. Does anybody know if it's worh it to have Apple replace the battery? Do you guys think we'd see some improvement, is it worth it?
 
Apple replaced the battery on my iPhone 5 after approx. 1 year 9 months under Applecare + because my battery life was getting terrible. The new battery life definitely showed improvement after the swap. Battery replacement is $79 at Apple. You can also look on Amazon for do it yourself battery replacement kits that cost significantly less if you up to the challenge.
 
Replaced a couple. One for my brother and one for a friend.

One was an OEM Apple battery I got off iphone4parts for $8. The other was a Stallion one off Amazon for $20.

Both have been working great since the change. It's especially noticeable where we live. Low coverage area sucks battery like crazy since it's trying so hard to grab a signal.

I've also changed 3 or 4 iPhone 4s batteries. Since they're even older. Major improvement. Some of them were just plain defective and would die at 20-30% out of the blue. New battery fixed it all up.

I'd say it's easily worth up to $30. I personally wouldn't pay $80 for Apple to do it, but that's because I can do it myself or recommend friends to a local place that does it for $30.

At least going the Apple route you know it's genuine.

I've got one iPhone 5 left that's still on the original battery two years later and it's doing alright. I just shipped it off to Apple to repair the Sleep/wake button under their program though. It was sunken in. Display is also discolored around the edges since my mother never turned it off and had the screen time out to never... Surprised the battery has done as good as it has.
 
I've replaced mine, my wife's and a friend's with batteries from iFixit. The original battery was becoming increasingly unreliable after about 1.5-2 years of use. An iPhone 5 with a good battery should last a full day with reasonable usage and only need to charge overnight.

There are a lot of threads about this and based on what I've seen I feel like the original iPhone 5 battery really wasn't as durable as previous iPhone/iPod batteries. Hopefully the batteries in newer devices are more reliable but we won't know until more time passes.
 
You might want to check your serial number since apple had a recall out for certain iPhone 5's. I had mine replaced under recall and it was a lot better.
Here's the website https://www.apple.com/support/iphone5-battery/
 
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I had mine for 1 year and 8 months but the battery was just very bad it couldn't hold more than 2 - 3 hours. Now since half December replaced and it works 'good' with 5 - 6 hours of usage. Running iOS 8.1.3
 
I went into the Apple Store on Saturday and they said I was eligible for both wake button replacement and new battery. Its slighy funny, because according to apple.com I wasn't elgible for a new battery. Quoted me 4 days to replace. I couldn't be without my phone that long so they gave me a white 16GB replacement until I get mine back. My phone is 32GB. It's refurbished I know, but still pretty nice.
 
I went into the Apple Store on Saturday and they said I was eligible for both wake button replacement and new battery. Its slighy funny, because according to apple.com I wasn't elgible for a new battery. Quoted me 4 days to replace. I couldn't be without my phone that long so they gave me a white 16GB replacement until I get mine back. My phone is 32GB. It's refurbished I know, but still pretty nice.

Similar thing happened to me. My mother upgraded from her iPhone 5 of 2 years to a new 6 Plus. When I took her old phone out of the case to clean it up I noticed the sleep/wake button was sunken in. So I went to Apple's site and sure enough, it qualified for the replacement. I mailed it in via their UPS account and when I got it back they had replaced the sleep/wake button flex cable, the battery, and the camera. Unfortunately, they left the LCD alone. It had a lot of discoloration around the whole border, and it's nothing we did, it simply developed over time. But, that wasn't part of the problem so it's whatever, it's sold now :)

I kind of wonder why they replaced the camera though, it has always been just fine? It wasn't under the battery recall either, since I checked when that came out. But nice to have anyway after two years of use.
 
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