who thinks the non user replaceable battery is a dumb idea?

Well, according to Apple, in order to have higher capacity batteries while maintaining the integrity of the design, they had to make them internal with no latching mechanism. Seeing the battery modules in the teardowns I've seen, it doesn't look like it would be too great a feat to have a trapdoor and latch in the case, so I'm not sure what the real motivator is. I'd be willing to bet it's the same reason that Macs don't have a hard drive activity indicator - Steve doesn't like the aesthetic qualities.

cwa107 said:

I'd be willing to bet it's the same reason that Macs don't have a hard drive activity indicator - Steve doesn't like the aesthetic qualities.

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It's possibly a similar situation to the old Ford Model T saying..."You can have any color you want as long as it's black!"

In this case..."You can innovate in any way you want...as long as Steve likes it!"

- Nick

you could initially get Model T's in other colors.. till demand exceeded their ability to make them with other colors.. then it was all black


BTW, the new bottom, is kind of cool.

cwa107 said:

I'd be willing to bet it's the same reason that Macs don't have a hard drive activity indicator - Steve doesn't like the aesthetic qualities.

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What is funny about that is even when Steve was fired and gone from Apple all those years, they never did put a Hard Drive light on their computers. On the old Macs I used some Norton thing called Disk Light or something like that. Been so long I forget the name. I miss that light from time to time.

I am all for user replaceable batteries.

dtravis7 said:

On the old Macs I used some Norton thing called Disk Light or something like that. Been so long I forget the name. I miss that light from time to time.

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Yupp...I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm sure 'Disk Light" is installed on at least a couple of my older Mac's.

- Nick

I never needed a spare battery, and I dont have the need for it now,if you want a removeable buy a refurb. I like the way Apple is moving in the right direction.

I thought when I posted it would be the case of "the emperors new clothes" everyone that has a new mbp or macbook was gonna flame me LOL! My experience with batteries is that there run time is far less than advertised. (example my ipod classic) If the new macbook or macbook pro has a solid 8 hours run time I could live with that. By nature I always expect the worse and believe that the reason (for the built in battery) is when the battery dies in a year or five some people will just buy a new one, like a $1500 bic lighter! sounds silly but I know a lot of people who are not mechanically inclined (not me) When they hear thats gonna be $200 to replace it thats what they will do, and thats what apple is banking on.

What gets me is the comment in the users manual saying that only an apple repair technician ca replace the battery. Do you see the battery and pull tab PLAINLY visible here?



btw, you need the following to replace it...

1 #1 phillips
1 triwing
1 spudger.

Nice pic dys! I think Companies like to scare people with words like "technician" and warranty void etc. looks easy. Who sells the batteries?

I can say for a fact that at least some of the people who work in Apple customer care feel that it was a bad move. When they were reading me the specs on the new MBP I'm getting as a replacement for my old one, the gentleman mentioned the longer lasting, non-removable battery. I said "Oh... I don't like the sounds of that..." and he said "I promise you, that's the only downgrade." (He upgraded everything else on my laptop, really went above and beyond) He didn't even TRY to market it to me as some new innovation. He admitted his opinion that it was a downgrade. From his tone, I believe he's gotten the "Oh... not sure about that" type of comment a lot and has given up trying to market it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Personally, I've never replaced a battery yet, but I liked having the freedom to do so easily when the time came--and that time would inevitably come, if I ever had an MBP not just up and die on me before the Applecare ran out on it. I also was planning to buy a battery when I got around to travelling, which I was planning to do next year, when my fiance (who will be my husband then) and I were planning on going roadtripping around the US so I could get to know my new country.

cwa107 said:

Oh, and I've had Apple replace defective batteries (not physically, but functionally defective - as in, short run time) replaced under warranty on two occasions now.

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I've had Apple replace my battery for both physical and functional defects under warranty

At first I didn't like the idea. Now with my 13" MBP the battery surfing w/wifi easily gets me 5 hours+. Little less doing movies and flash, but most of the time its very nice. I will get **** close to 7 hours with wifi/blue tooth off and just working on documents and such.

As with many, in the past I have never ever needed to carry two batteries. Was there a time or two where I wished I picked up that second battery? For sure, but I got over it... sometimes you just gotta do with what you got.

As for the Apple replacement, from what I know, you are charged for the battery, but not for them to replace it, ie no labor costs.

Other than a defective battery, you shouldn't be worried about getting a replacement battery due to use for a while, even the heavy user isn't going to put on 800 cycles anytime soon (I know 1000 is what they say, but 800 is more realistic).

Kalison said:

At first I didn't like the idea. Now with my 13" MBP the battery surfing w/wifi easily gets me 5 hours+. Little less doing movies and flash, but most of the time its very nice. I will get **** close to 7 hours with wifi/blue tooth off and just working on documents and such.

As with many, in the past I have never ever needed to carry two batteries. Was there a time or two where I wished I picked up that second battery? For sure, but I got over it... sometimes you just gotta do with what you got.

As for the Apple replacement, from what I know, you are charged for the battery, but not for them to replace it, ie no labor costs.

Other than a defective battery, you shouldn't be worried about getting a replacement battery due to use for a while, even the heavy user isn't going to put on 800 cycles anytime soon (I know 1000 is what they say, but 800 is more realistic).

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And again, it's not like you can't get an external battery if you know you're going to be doing long stints on battery power alone (like an international flight).