MacBook Pro Battery 'Service Recommended'

[RabidGranny]

Evening

Quick one. Is it worth replacing the battery on a Macbook pro (2017) model with the above message being displayed if it is only ever going to be used on the cable from now on??

Thanks in advance

[Mont Blanc]

RabidGranny said:

Evening

Quick one. Is it worth replacing the battery on a Macbook pro (2017) model with the above message being displayed if it is only ever going to be used on the cable from now on??

Thanks in advance

It will cost you about £250 to have the battery replaced by Apple.

Personally, I would just sell it and put the money towards a MacBook Air from the new M series. Even the M1 will absolutely blow your 2017 Pro out of the water in every respect.

Amazon have the M1 Air on sale at the moment for £749, which makes it a no brainer.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-MacBook-Chip-13-inc...

[NDA]

As above. Treat yourself!

I live on my laptop, so when the last laptop went a bit flakey, I bought the 14" M1 Pro - terrific, totally bullet proof.

[RabidGranny]

its for the kids so im reluctant to buy anything. ive been given it by my sister. Hence the q. if its always plugged in can i ignore this message?

[Mont Blanc]

RabidGranny said:

its for the kids so im reluctant to buy anything. ive been given it by my sister. Hence the q. if its always plugged in can i ignore this message?

Google is your friend here

"Service Recommended: the battery’s ability to hold charge is less than when it was new, or the battery isn’t functioning normally. You can continue to use your Mac safely, but if your battery needs a service or its lowered charging capacity is affecting your experience, get your battery evaluated at an Apple Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider, or contact Apple"

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108376#:~:text=You...

[RabidGranny]

Mont Blanc said:

RabidGranny said:

its for the kids so im reluctant to buy anything. ive been given it by my sister. Hence the q. if its always plugged in can i ignore this message?

Google is your friend here

"Service Recommended: the battery’s ability to hold charge is less than when it was new, or the battery isn’t functioning normally. You can continue to use your Mac safely, but if your battery needs a service or its lowered charging capacity is affecting your experience, get your battery evaluated at an Apple Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider, or contact Apple"

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108376#:~:text=You...

cheers chief

[nuyorican]

So if it's £250 for Apple to fit a new battery, is it not something that some high-street tech shop can do, for I'd imagine a lot less?

Also, the people saying 'just buy a new one', - isn't the OP, or the OP's kids going to possibly run into compatibility issues?

I'm still using a 2015 MBP. It's awesome, if I can just swap the battery when the time comes I definitely will and get a few more years out of it.

[dogbucket]

Try Coconut Battery app to get some specific stats on the battery. It has probably lost some capacity hence the warning from the OS. It will still work but may become unpredictable in terms of the percentage suddenly dropping or the Macbook powering off unexpected when running on battery. Absolute worst case the pack may swell and distort the case but I have only seen that once or twice (in a corp environment with hundreds of machines), and normally only very old and abused ones.

[bitchstewie]

Yeah my old Intel MBP did this.

Started off as that then it would randomly die on battery then it would randomly die with the mains connected then it seemed to settle down to the point where it would work with the magsafe charger connected but if you disconnected it for so much as a millisecond it would die.

Depends how much you like your kids I guess

[RabidGranny]

dogbucket said:

Try Coconut Battery app to get some specific stats on the battery. It has probably lost some capacity hence the warning from the OS. It will still work but may become unpredictable in terms of the percentage suddenly dropping or the Macbook powering off unexpected when running on battery. Absolute worst case the pack may swell and distort the case but I have only seen that once or twice (in a corp environment with hundreds of machines), and normally only very old and abused ones.

I did the coconut thing (and thanks for the suggestion btw) and it came back as battery status 'good'. which makes me wonder a bit as to what way the battery is in reality.