Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

My MacBook Air 2012 shuts down at ~50% battery, and my iPhone 5S at 15%.

Meanwhile, my ancient Thinkpad T500 I owned before the MBA is alive and kicking, and when its battery gave out after three years, I could just order another battery to replace it with. On my MBA, everything is glued together, so I have to pay a couple of hundreds for a 1st og 3rd party shop to replace it instead - with no guarantee what the end result will be.

The future really sucks this way, especially since it’s not a secret that batteries do worse over time - it’s in the friggin’ manuals for Apple’s devices.

Apple’s products are a lot more affordable than they used to, when we criticized them for being for the rich, but now they seem to expect us to replace our products far more frequently than we used to.

On a lighter note, the remote for my Pioneer remote broke, and I literally can’t adjust some of my speaker settings without it, and Pioneer have taken weeks to respond to my query. It’d be ridiculous if I had to get a new sound system, and surely losing a remote isn’t some obscure scenario to these people.




You can take it into an Apple Store and they will replace the battery and recycle the old one. Cost varies by device but I suspect it'll cost $200 or so. Far less than replacing the device.

This isn't a conspiracy. If you want a thin (and light) device, you have to make compromises. A user replaceable battery on a MacBook will add a slight amount of thickness and weight (same with soldered vs in soldered components). I totally understand if you're not a fan of it, but in that case you probably ought to buy a ThinkPad instead.


> Cost varies by device but I suspect it'll cost $200 or so. Far less than replacing the device.

It's $129 (excluding taxes): https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite...


Which isn't that bad, that's the same price as buying a replacement battery for my 2008 MB 5,1. I think I paid around £80 for the last one. At least you're not being charged any extra for servicing.


My Late 2012 MBPr 13" has battery problems. Shuts off without warning at about 60%. Still under AppleCare, it will cost me nothing to fix.

Apparently 2012-gen batteries have known issues and die far sooner than they should be.


My counter example anecdote:

I also own a 2012 MacBook Air. In July I brought it to an Apple store just two weeks before my Apple Care support ended. I got a brand new battery for free because the three year old one had "only" 70% capacity left.

On the other hand the battery in the Dell laptop I had before got really bad after just one year, right after the one-year guarantee ended. 14 months after I bought the laptop I had to buy a new battery because the old one only lasted 10 minutes anymore.

Of those two scenarios I really prefer the Apple one. If you don't have Apple Care anymore you still don't have to bring it to a third-party shop. Apple will replace the batteries for $129 for up to 7 year old laptops: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite...


Similar in experience here. I bought an X201 a few years ago. I fed it an SSD when they made finincial sense and a new 9-cell battery once a year when the capacity drops to ~60%. I wear out a keyboard every 3 years or so which is a 5 minute job to replace. I can't see myself buying a new machine for at least 3-4 years.

Edit: to add context, my wife's 2013 MBP already needs a new battery but that's glued in and they want to charge me to replace it. It hangs off the charger all day with only short disconnects to move it around. And the space bar only works on one end.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: