Think it's worth replacing my battery?

[eicca]

Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro, 512GB SSD and 10GB RAM upgrades, macOS 10.12.2

I'm only seeing 4-1/2 tops hours of normal web browsing (Facebook, forums, etc) in Safari. Flash is not installed. KaBlock ad-blocker is my only extension. No bluetooth, no sharing services, minimal keyboard and display brightness, and Dropbox is my only 3rd-party background process. Limited iCloud syncing enabled. I keep this thing running pretty efficiently.

Back in the OSX 10.7 days I was regularly seeing 7 hours, which is what it was rated for. Now after five and a half years my battery is at 584 cycles, and coconutBattery says 85% health remaining, but 4 hours is my norm. Am I likely to see any improvement with a new battery, or is Sierra just not optimized for this old hardware?

No, I'm not going off the "time remaining" thing, which doesn't even exist anymore.

A well-rated aftermarket battery is $60 ish on Amazon right now. All you experts, am I likely to see any meaningful difference?

 

[mjberwick]

Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro, 512GB SSD and 10GB RAM upgrades, macOS 10.12.2

I'm only seeing 4-1/2 tops hours of normal web browsing (Facebook, forums, etc) in Safari. Flash is not installed. KaBlock ad-blocker is my only extension. No bluetooth, no sharing services, minimal keyboard and display brightness, and Dropbox is my only 3rd-party background process. Limited iCloud syncing enabled. I keep this thing running pretty efficiently.

Back in the OSX 10.7 days I was regularly seeing 7 hours, which is what it was rated for. Now after five and a half years my battery is at 584 cycles, and coconutBattery says 85% health remaining, but 4 hours is my norm. Am I likely to see any improvement with a new battery, or is Sierra just not optimized for this old hardware?

No, I'm not going off the "time remaining" thing, which doesn't even exist anymore.

A well-rated aftermarket battery is $60 ish on Amazon right now. All you experts, am I likely to see any meaningful difference?

If the phone is functional and still has a good bit of memory left yes it's worth , I don't care what phone you have I
Don't think none of them work perfect without some kind of messed up problem at one time or another

 

[TonyK]

Not sure how we got to talking about phone batteries when the question was about a 2011 MBP.

OP, if the computer still works for you I would go ahead and get a new battery but get a good battery from a known source.

It is likely also time to bump your memory from 10GB to 16GB if you are not afraid of opening your system. There are likely videos on YouTube to help. about 18 months back I opened a 2009 MBP (17" unit) and replaced the HD with SSD and bumped the memory to the max the system could take (sadly 6GB). The system is substantially faster now.

If you aren't comfortable with the memory upgrade and the system still does what you want, then I would still look at replacing the battery.

 

[eicca]

Not sure how we got to talking about phone batteries when the question was about a 2011 MBP.

OP, if the computer still works for you I would go ahead and get a new battery but get a good battery from a known source.

It is likely also time to bump your memory from 10GB to 16GB if you are not afraid of opening your system. There are likely videos on YouTube to help. about 18 months back I opened a 2009 MBP (17" unit) and replaced the HD with SSD and bumped the memory to the max the system could take (sadly 6GB). The system is substantially faster now.

If you aren't comfortable with the memory upgrade and the system still does what you want, then I would still look at replacing the battery.

I've opened it a few times, not too big a deal. It originally came with only 4GB RAM and the 320GB HDD. I don't think I'll spend any more money on upgrades of that nature. I think I'll track down a 2015 15" and use my 2011 for my Mainstage rig.

 

[TonyK]

I know where I can get a new 2015 MBP with AppleCare for a good price. Wondering if it is time to upgrade. The MBP 17" 2009 is not my primary computer but I'm thinking my primary is old enough it may need to retire and to go entirely mobile. The issue comes down to the 3TB drive in my primary system that has so much data on it.

 

[eicca]

I know where I can get a new 2015 MBP with AppleCare for a good price. Wondering if it is time to upgrade. The MBP 17" 2009 is not my primary computer but I'm thinking my primary is old enough it may need to retire and to go entirely mobile. The issue comes down to the 3TB drive in my primary system that has so much data on it.

Where might I also get a good price on said MacBook?

 

[ApolloBoy]

It is likely also time to bump your memory from 10GB to 16GB if you are not afraid of opening your system.

10 GB is more than enough for web browsing and light tasks, IMO 16 GB is only necessary if you run several VMs or do other intensive tasks.

 

[TonyK]

Where might I also get a good price on said MacBook?

B&H Photo has new 2015 15" MBP with 16GB ram and up to 1TB SSD for what feels like a good price and you can get AppleCare through them.