Late 2008 MacBook Pro Battery Question

[Cody Craddock]

Hello all,

I have a Late 2008 MBP (15") that I have basically refurbished because a friend's MBP just like mine had the display go out. Mine had blown speakers, weak hinges, a broken clutch cover, and a bad SuperDrive. I was able to have everything on my 2008 MBP replaced with his donor computer giving up its old parts. I am so excited to have my old MBP back up and running. However, the battery life is somewhat subpar on the old MBPs. I can only get about 2.5-3 hours of battery life out of the machine. I had replaced the battery in it with a NewTech replacement from OWC about a year ago. It only ha 52 charge cycles on it.

I was just wondering if there was a battery out there that is of a higher density and can last longer. I understand that the 2008 MBP is dated and has components that are more power hungry than newer hardware, but still would like to improve the time between charges. Other Unibody MBPs have batteries with capacities up to 8500 mAh while my 2008 MBP has a battery with a mere 5500 mAh. Therefore I am inclined to believe that a battery of similar capacity is at least possible for my 2008 MBP.

 

[Steve686]

Since that was a removable battery model, why not just buy a spare or two?

I loved my 2008 unibody but ya, the battery life sucked and my batteries swelled to the point the trackpad wouldn't click and the battery door popped off.

 

[haremite]

Hi. I replaced my original Macbook (15 in., mid 2010) battery in June 2018 with a Newer Tech. Also changed to SSD. As you can see from the attached screen shot, the battery supposedly is running normally, but not it's not really as it is draining super, super fast. If I get two hours out of it now, it's a miracle. I'm really disgusted and wonder if this Newer Tech battery company is any good. It came from OWC and was installed at an authorized Mac servicer. I don't play games, music, videos, etc. on my computer, just use if for basic stuff and I rarely use Chrome. I realize my laptop is old, but I have no plans to get a new one anytime soon. I love this one. Should I try to find an Apple replacement? Thanks.

 

[throAU]

Be aware that the web has moved on since 2008. Even with the same battery (just brand new), getting say 5-6 hours of life when new with the 2008 web pages, you'll see that drop with the modern 2020 internet. Because the modern internet web pages have a lot more stuff going on inside them.

I'd strongly suggest getting an ad-blocker which will stop a heap of the background garbage on a modern web page running in the background.

I use 1blocker (from the App Store), it works well. You may also be able to get similar results by turning off javascript, etc. but that's increasingly not-feasible if you actually want to use modern web pages.

 

[avz]

I am happy with the 2-power battery I recently bought for my late 2008 13-inch MacBook but it seems that "user replaceable battery compartment" design is flawed in terms of cooling. My MBP7,1 with a higher CPU clock frequency runs cooler in a clamshell mode with external full HD monitor than my late 2008 MacBook in normal operation. It seems that Apple made a revolutionary leap forward by ditching the "battery compartment" design.