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farmermac

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2009
779
11
Iowa
I received my refurb rMBP and have been playing with it. Very impressed so far with the display and speed. So I cloned my data back onto it and ran coconut battery to see how many cycles the battery had. To my surprise it read 46. It's a little bit more then I am comfortable with. It means the machine was used for a solid month before someone returned it. I have bought many refurbs; I thought apple replaced batteries unless they had very few cycles on it. The machine is perfect otherwise and I love it. Just a little unfomfortable with that cycle count.
 
Just sit back and enjoy the manchine life too short to even worry about a battery that is covered under warranty for the 1st year
 
Well refurbs still have the 14 day return policy so feel free to return this one and order a new one. Also, per my chat with some Apple customer service rep, he said they do replace batteries that have too much use on them, so perhaps this is right at the threshold. 46 cycles might not seem like much to some, but that means you have already lost 4.6% of the battery's guaranteed life span, which to me seems like a lot for a new purchase. Anything under 20 might be ok, but 46 seems rather high. It also implies this unit was likely used for more than 14 days before being returned. That suggests it was probably a defective unit that was rebuilt. Apple's reburb process is good, but its still something to consider.
 
It is a little high. But they are rated to go to 1000. And if anything goes wrong in the first year aren't you covered?

the battery is considered a wear item.. Its not replaced under applecare. Its only replaced in the first year if it drops below a certain percentage of battery life (under 80% i believe). It just takes me by surprised because i thought every refurb was used for a short amount of time by customers who returned new machines, not over a month+ of use
 
the battery is considered a wear item.. Its not replaced under applecare. Its only replaced in the first year if it drops below a certain percentage of battery life (under 80% i believe). It just takes me by surprised because i thought every refurb was used for a short amount of time by customers who returned new machines, not over a month+ of use

I completely agree with you. That's what I meant about the battery, that you are covered if it's defective in the first year. With that many cycles it was almost certainly used more than one month. I wouldn't be happy. Maybe if you make a polite fuss at an Apple store they might swap it out for a new battery.

If you are more concerned about this being a more highly used item than you had anticipated can't you return it and then buy a different refurb? Are you still in that return window?
 
the battery is considered a wear item.. Its not replaced under applecare. Its only replaced in the first year if it drops below a certain percentage of battery life (under 80% i believe). It just takes me by surprised because i thought every refurb was used for a short amount of time by customers who returned new machines, not over a month+ of use

46 cycles does not indicate more than a months use.
 
I received my refurb rMBP and have been playing with it. Very impressed so far with the display and speed. So I cloned my data back onto it and ran coconut battery to see how many cycles the battery had. To my surprise it read 46. It's a little bit more then I am comfortable with. It means the machine was used for a solid month before someone returned it. I have bought many refurbs; I thought apple replaced batteries unless they had very few cycles on it. The machine is perfect otherwise and I love it. Just a little unfomfortable with that cycle count.

I've had my rMBP since late July, use it pretty much every day, and it's only got 155 power cycles on it. A lot of the time it's hooked up to power, but a lot of the time it's not. So it's really anyone's guess as to how long the battery was actually in service. I'd trade my battery for your refurb...and wouldn't be concerned with it at all.
 
I would contact Apple and ask them about a possible solution. Anyway, 46 cycles is close to nothing. I have 405 right now and am still at 95% battery capacity.
 
Dude your complaining about 46 cycles on a battery. This is hilarious...i think you need to stop being so anal.
 
My battery cycle on my computer is up to 1193 and it's still going strong. I can still get about 4 hours or so to a charge on my MBP. I wouldn't worry about it
 
I don't see any reference to refurbs or a 30-day return policy.

http://store.apple.com/ca/help/returns_refund
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

My MBP that's just barely a year old has 19 cycles on the battery and has spent most of its time in clamshell mode on my desk.

It's very easy to do more than one cycle per day. It's also possible to get a refurbished unit that was used for more than 14 days. Where do you think the units that were replaced under warranty go? That's right, they get repaired, re-certified, and sold as refurbished.

Don't sweat it, if the battery cycle count is your only complaint then consider yourself lucky.
 
my rMBP from August 2012 has 75 cycles. 40+ is more than a month of usage. Not many people go to 1.5 cycles a day, everyday during one month.

It's not that unbelievable. I've had my computer for about 3 years, 3 years * 365 days a year = 1095 days. 1194 Cycles / 1095 days = about 1.1 cycles a day average over 3 years. If they're a student or take their computer with them and use it a lot, I'd think it'd be easy to go through a charge or two a day for say the 14 days that they had it.

Regardless, I'd probably take it to Apple and ask for a new battery if you just got it and it had that many cycles on it
 
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You can also check the battery health in System Info System Report. The 15 in Retina's out of box Full Charge Capacity is 8460 mAh. If it's significantly less than that I'd get it exchanged.

Even so 46 charge cycles can mean a month old machine or a 4 month old machine, you really don't know. I'd inquire about it with Apple in any event.
 
It also implies this unit was likely used for more than 14 days before being returned. That suggests it was probably a defective unit that was rebuilt. Apple's reburb process is good, but its still something to consider.

Not necessarily... There is a longer return Window during the Christmas season, so it might not have been defective but still used for longer than 14 days.
 
You bought a refurb computer. Why would you expect a brand new one? Nowhere on the refurb site does it say "refurbished computers have been used less than a month."
 
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