OWC or Apple Replacement Battery?

[avz]

My 2-power battery which I bought in 2019 seems to be doing reasonably well.

 

[patm64]

New member here.
First off, thanks to all who have shared their experience and especially for followup responses.
I just replaced the OEM battery with this one from Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0823SKWM3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I was going to go with one from Rewa but the shipping charge gave me pause. This one has higher ratings than others on Amazon and for $42, I thought it was worth a try. I've replaced batteries on older Macbooks and iPads so I know it's a crapshoot to get a good one.

According to coconut battery, the battery is 775 days old and was made by Simplo.
It was a pain in the butt to remove the old battery so as a test, I placed a layer of saran wrap (it's all I had handy) between the two battery panels under the trackpad and the trackpad. I anticipate replacing the battery at some point so would like to have less trouble the next time.

One thing I came across was a suggestion to repeat the calibration process 5 times at least. Scroll down to the response from "admin": https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/442887/Correct+battery+clibration+after+replacement

Will post again in a few months.

 

[startergo]

New member here.
First off, thanks to all who have shared their experience and especially for followup responses.
I just replaced the OEM battery with this one from Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0823SKWM3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I was going to go with one from Rewa but the shipping charge gave me pause. This one has higher ratings than others on Amazon and for $42, I thought it was worth a try. I've replaced batteries on older Macbooks and iPads so I know it's a crapshoot to get a good one.

According to coconut battery, the battery is 775 days old and was made by Simplo.
It was a pain in the butt to remove the old battery so as a test, I placed a layer of saran wrap (it's all I had handy) between the two battery panels under the trackpad and the trackpad. I anticipate replacing the battery at some point so would like to have less trouble the next time.

One thing I came across was a suggestion to repeat the calibration process 5 times at least. Scroll down to the response from "admin": https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/442887/Correct+battery+clibration+after+replacement

Will post again in a few months.

Did you try diagnostic test at boot?

 

[patm64]

Did you try diagnostic test at boot?

Thanks. I had forgotten about that so just did. It gave me a battery may have issues message but that's probably because it's looking for an OEM battery.

The laptop is running fine. I was just posting my experience so far.

 

[startergo]

Thanks. I had forgotten about that so just did. It gave me a battery may have issues message but that's probably because it's looking for an OEM battery.

The laptop is running fine. I was just posting my experience so far.

I am afraid it will give you issues. You will have to discharge it and monitor the discharge / charge rates. You may find jumps in the cycles as well as degraded battery life. What most of the sellers on ebay and amazon do is to reset the controller so it shows 0 cycles. After that they cannot reseal the controller hence the error and the degraded performance. I have been through that experience many times.

 

[patm64]

I am afraid it will give you issues. You will have to discharge it and monitor the discharge / charge rates. You may find jumps in the cycles as well as degraded battery life. What most of the sellers on ebay and amazon do is to reset the controller so it shows 0 cycles. After that they cannot reseal the controller hence the error and the degraded performance. I have been through that experience many times.

That's good to know. Will have to watch.

 

[patm64]

hmm, read back to your post and screenshot from a month ago or so. I'm seeing a lower full charge capacity than when I put it in 5 days ago (8630, I think).

 

[startergo]

Best test is to use it on battery continuously and see how long it lasts. Also inspect the discharge rate.

 

[f54da]

New member here.
First off, thanks to all who have shared their experience and especially for followup responses.
I just replaced the OEM battery with this one from Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0823SKWM3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I was going to go with one from Rewa but the shipping charge gave me pause. This one has higher ratings than others on Amazon and for $42, I thought it was worth a try. I've replaced batteries on older Macbooks and iPads so I know it's a crapshoot to get a good one.

According to coconut battery, the battery is 775 days old and was made by Simplo.
It was a pain in the butt to remove the old battery so as a test, I placed a layer of saran wrap (it's all I had handy) between the two battery panels under the trackpad and the trackpad. I anticipate replacing the battery at some point so would like to have less trouble the next time.

One thing I came across was a suggestion to repeat the calibration process 5 times at least. Scroll down to the response from "admin": https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/442887/Correct+battery+clibration+after+replacement

Will post again in a few months.

Amazon reviews are not indicative of anything since sellers can and do fill it with fake reviews. And the thing with batteries is that even the ********* batteries will work fine for a few months before failing. I'm also really skeptical that calibrating any more than once is really necessary (tbh ideally the battery should actually come pre-calibrated from the factory, but I doubt they'd bother with that). And you cannot trust any value reported to you – they can all be faked, from the manufacturer to the cell voltage, to the capacity. Hence why it's better to see how they change over time and with use.

The saran wrap thing also reminds me, is there actually any good long-term solution to avoid gluing the battery back in? From what I've gathered the battery needs space to expand (pouch cells have slight expansion during normal use, or in the case of failure will heavily expand) so anything rigid placed on top to hold it in place will not work. But on the flipside if you don't secure it on the bottom then the connector can get loose (and the battery jiggling around in there doesn't seem to good either). I've seen suggestions of tessa tape as the adhesive which might be easier to replace?

 

[patm64]

I'm well aware of fake reviews on Amazon. But you might as well assume that all MBP batteries on there have them too. It's a bit of a gamble any way you slice it. I look for reviews that are posted after some usage OR updated later. I try to update reviews 5-6 months down the line.

I wondered about gluing it back in too. It feels pretty snug in there anyway. I transferred the rubber strips from the from the top of the OEM battery to help. Not familiar with tesa tape.

I've been using a fan cooling app like Macs Fan Control or smcFanControl for years. My OEM showed no signs of swelling.

 

[startergo]

I'm well aware of fake reviews on Amazon. But you might as well assume that all MBP batteries on there have them too. It's a bit of a gamble any way you slice it. I look for reviews that are posted after some usage OR updated later. I try to update reviews 5-6 months down the line.

I wondered about gluing it back in too. It feels pretty snug in there anyway. I transferred the rubber strips from the from the top of the OEM battery to help. Not familiar with tesa tape.

I've been using a fan cooling app like Macs Fan Control or smcFanControl for years. My OEM showed no signs of swelling.

It gave me a battery may have issues message but that's probably because it's looking for an OEM battery.

Just for your information I have 2 "new batteries" with the same message bought from eBay and eBay refunded me the money after I complained about them as this is a real issue (discharge/charge rate too). The Rewa battery does not show the error.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

My 2 cents...I've bought many OWC batteries and never had a single issue with one, ever.

 

[f54da]

I've been using a fan cooling app like Macs Fan Control or smcFanControl for years. My OEM showed no signs of swelling.

Swelling usually happens when people leave the laptop plugged in and charged 100% for long periods of time (order of weeks, usually they use it docked). It's well known that lion batteries will degrade rapidly when kept at such a high rate of charge. The resulting side-reactions, in addition to degrading capacity, will also produce gas as a byproduct.

 

[LarryJoe33]

So nice to see this thread I started many years ago still adding value. Unfortunately, my last "ebay Apple" battery is doing fine, the 2011 MBP, not so much. It really needs a clean install. I have been running unsupported OS's and I think the last got the best of me. Certain applications I rely on crash instantly. I am following this thread though. It is a testament to 10+ year old machines that are still running.

 

[avz]

Another one of my 2-power batteries. Yesterday started using bclm command line utility to limit charging to 69%.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Hi everyone,

A little more feedback for the OWC (NewerTech) batteries. I'm typing this on a 2015 15" MacBook Pro with a OWC battery I replaced last year and so far it's been excellent, no issues whatsoever. I also have a 2010 11" Macbook Air with an OWC battery I replaced in it about 2 years ago and it also is still working excellent, no issues. Both machines have nice long battery life.

 

[f54da]

@DouglasCarroll can you run diagnostic test at boot time to see if it passes?

 

[DouglasCarroll]

@DouglasCarroll can you run diagnostic test at boot time to see if it passes?

Passes what?

 

[startergo]

Passes what?

Boot to Local Apple Hardware Diagnostic (D) and see what the test result is:

sudo nvram internet-recovery-mode=DiagsModeDisk && sudo reboot

 

[f54da]

I think I found the holy grail:

https://www.cdx.de/store/products/A...ook-Air-Akku-11-2010-High-Quality-Zellen.html

The guy behind it posts on the german mac forums (https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/ifixit-akku-qualität.1263029/ and https://www.macuser.de/threads/high-quality-akkus-fuer-aeltere-mbx-von-cdx.877627/)

As a battery dealer and importer, I might be able to shed some light on this.

Dealers who want to sell cheaply or are simply too greedy offer replica batteries in the original housing, these are mainly manufactured in China. Then there are a few manufacturers who buy original cells, test them properly and put them in the original housing. Such batteries are usually really good, unless they are older models and the cells are older and have been stored for a long time.

Complete originals from the production of Simplo or SMP are not available on the open market, Apple has blocked these suppliers well.

In mid-2020, we commissioned our exporter to build a special series of MacBook batteries for us, the requirement was simple: please do not pay attention to the price, buy the best battery cells that China has to offer and use them to build us different MacBook battery models. Produce a battery for us that is better than the Apple standard from Simplo or SMC.

Well, after a few weeks there is still no long-term experience, but the observation that not a single built-in or sold battery has been complained about. We are currently testing a high-end battery in the MacBook Pro Retina 15" from 2012, thanks to the connected cinema display, a lot of voltage is required in order not to protect the part.

So far, every battery, even in a new device, was three to five percent below the design capacity in the first 10 to 20 cycles. We cannot see this "normal" loss in our test, after 19 cycles it is still above the design capacity of 8,460mAh at 8,482mAh.

Another pleasant effect is the high charging current that this battery accepts, it is currently being charged with 46 watts.

Since we bear a large part of the higher production costs ourselves, the new CDX High Quality battery is hardly more expensive than the standard battery with the original cells.

The reviews seem unanimously positive (at least what I could make out through google translate)

The prices are a bit high (esp. including vat) but factoring that these are limited-runs with good-quality cells it makes sense.

He apparently also carries ones with original cells, but according to his own words it's not buying these on account of their age

You shouldn't buy the battery with the older original cells from me either. These are new and unused batteries, but the cells are old technology and were produced some time ago. The plan to have a better battery series built did not come from the desire to get longer runtimes / more capacity, but to get a more durable battery with newer cell technology and completely new material. The higher capacity is just a pleasant side effect.

 

[wordsworth]

That looks really interesting (re the German battery) and I've made a note of it for future reference.

However, back in January 2021 I bought a 2-Power battery from Duracell Direct in the UK for my early 2009 white MacBook, just to keep it alive. I spent ages trying to narrow down my search and at the time Duracell Direct's 2-Power battery seemed like one of the more potentially reliable choices in a narrow field. I still use the MacBook occasionally for fun and to give the battery a good workout so I continue to be happy that I chose the 2-Power battery.

Just thought this may be an additionally helpful piece of info for someone.

 

[avz]

My 2-power battery is losing around 4 mAh every charge cycle(not sure if it is by design) but I guess all things considered you can call it a graceful aging.

 

[Zia Ur Rehman]

I have a MacBook Retina 13" (Late 2012) running Catalina. Battery was having issues. Apple Store said its $199+tax for a new battery. The trade-in value for my MacBook is barely $250. So I got an "iProPower" from Amazon for $75. Just installed it today. *fingers crossed*



View attachment 889527

Hey there how are you, I saw you post regarding ipropower battery replacement. I want to ask that how is that battery holding up? Is it still working? How was your experienc. I want to replace my battery too and only battery which is easily available to me is iProPower battery. Unfortunately I am not able to find any reviews online.

 

[RedOctober]

I recently had to replace the battery on my 15" MBP Mid-2015 so ordered A NewerTech battery from MacFixit Australia. I previously had one from iFixit which I installed myself a few years back. I was a bit impatient the first time round and promptly mangled the protective back plate of the touchpad. Nothing serious at the time.

This time round, however, the touchpad protective back plate managed to stay stuck to the iFixit battery and it totally came off as I disassembled the battery. I decided to leave it off as there was another plate so I just assembled the NewerTech battery on it and put it all back together. Touchpad still works nicely so I'm not worried.

After calibrating the battery and firing up the Coconut Battery app, it tells me that the battery was manufactured on 30th March 2015, and my MBP was manufactured on 25th May 2015!!!

Battery seems OK though, but without the touchpad protective back plate, it might be the last battery replacement and once the battery gets tired, it'll be off to silicon heaven 😭

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Hi everyone!

interesting thread. I end up getting quite a few used MacBook Pros and almost always end up replacing the battery in them, I consider it part of the "getting it ready for daily use" expense. Sometimes, however, if the existing battery looks PERFECT (no swelling) I'll leave it in. When I do replace them I always use OWC for the batteries and, so far, I haven't had any issues. HOWEVER there is one thing that I do think is really important to do with newer MacBook Pro laptops. I don't trust the "battery" display in Mac OS and I like to open the bottom case every few months and visually check the batteries myself for swelling. It's amazing how often the OS will give NO INDICATION of an issue and the battery is swelling like crazy, or even starting to swell. My rule is "as soon as it starts to show ANY sign of swelling, replace the battery". Everyone is free to do what makes them comfortable, of course, but to me it's not worth chancing burning down my house to save $90 on a new battery and taking a chance.

Seriously, take the time to occasionally pull the bottom off of your laptop and visually check the battery for swelling.

Take care everyone!