Anyone have any experience with aftermarket MacBook batteries.

Mine has been slowly dying. It will still hold a charge but the length it last is getting bad. The onboard apple software says to replace it now.

I have no problems replacing it myself but wonder how aftermarket batteries compare to Apple batteries.

Apple wants $200 to replace mine. That's insane. I can find it for $80-90 from places like "ifixit" but they are still not Apple.

I’ve had good luck a couple of times with aftermarket batteries by NuPower, sold at Other World Computing. OWC has a good reputation in the Mac world. I’ve bought RAM and other odds and ends from them and wouldn’t hesitate to do business there.

Don’t know yet about long term but the third-party MacBook Air battery I got from Amazon went in fine and holds a charge.

I've bought four or five batteries for MB Pros that came from several different aftermarket manufacturers. I didn't have any problems with them and they gave good endurance.

I would prefer to buy OEM but the price difference is significant.

If you are skeptical, you might consider buying the battery via Amazon. Search whatever model battery you need and sort by "customer review". This gives you some options if you have a problem right off the bat. I have noticed that sellers are a bit more aware of negative feedback on Amazon vs. Ebay.

Just keep in mind there appears to be some serious drug users that also give these reviews- look at the negative feedback and decide. (Frequently as forum members have noticed- you have people who give a negative review on something because of emotional or stoopid reasons)...

I recommend OWC (1 year warranty) or ifixit.com. OWC's batteries come with the necessary tools.

Since I messed up the link in my previous post, I'll post again and suggest reading at this point in a different topic where Macbook batteries and CoconutBattery were discussed: https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...810086334#1810086334

Depends on the model. At least one of them is hard as hell to replace. Kit from ifixit comes with a syringe and chemicals for removing the glue on the original battery. I think most of those kits include the OEM quality battery though...

Worth mentioning-

Apple’s latest Mac notebook OEM batteries are designed to maintain about 80% of their original charging capacity after 1000 cycles or 5 years. That means a battery that lasted for 5 hours when it was new should last around 4 hours by the time it gets to 1000 cycles.
For comparison, PC makers like HP only expect their batteries to hold 80% of their capacity after 300 cycles or 1 year.

If you want to know the cycle count on your battery, select "About this Mac" on the left upper corner, click on "system report" and select "Power". It will give battery information and the battery Cycle Count and condition.

If you are going to store your Macbook Pro long term, don't store it completely discharged. It's best to only charge it to around 50% because if you store it fully charged it may lose some capacity over time.

My battery has a little over 1000 cycles.

quote:

Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 3219
Fully Charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4644
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 1097
Condition: Replace Soon
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 2506
Voltage (mV): 12031

Running iStat it list my battery health at 55%

I bought a Nu Power battery from Mac.Sales.com for my MacBook Pro. It works well comes with procedure on calibration, fairly simple to install.

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:
Running iStat it list my battery health at 55%

Although I did find their website, I am not otherwise familiar with iStat. In the linked discussion that I posted earlier which occurred in another topic, I recommended the free coconut Battery app which provides more detailed information about your battery than Apple's OS does. As mentioned in that topic, I upgraded to the plus version of coconut Battery for $10 mostly as a donation, but also to monitor the health status of my SSDs.

You didn't mention the model/year of your Mac, but if it is a Retina Mac, then the battery is glued in and was intentionally designed to be difficult to be user serviceable. If I owned a Retina Mac that needed a new battery, I would just let Apple replace it since my time is more valuable to me than my money. (And also, I did carelessly damage a logic board while replacing a battery in my deceased mid-2010 MBP.)

If you Mac is pre-Retina, replacing the battery is fairly simple if you are not in a rush "just to get it working again".