St. Louis Wedding Photographer

I recently took a one day road trip about a hundred fifty miles and during the trip, I noticed that my 11 month old 15″ Macbook Pro was only holding a charge for about an hour twenty minutes. This didn’t seem normal so I checked the battery information under the System Profiler (click the Apple icon in the top right corner -> about this Mac -> More Info -> Power. This shows all the information about the battery. Mine had 87 cycles and the condition said Check Battery.

I did a Google search and found out that there are known issues with some of the batteries in this model. I scheduled a time slot for the Genius Bar at the closest Apple Store and took it in. I explained to the tech what happened and I told him I did upgrade the firmware (an update addressed the issue on some models) and that I calibrated the battery recently. He looked at it and without hesitation grabbed a new battery and installed it for me. He sent the old one off to Apple and I was on my way with a brand new battery. Total time spent in the Apple store was less than ten minutes.

I really can’t rave much more for how awesome Apple’s support is. I really don’t recommend any other brand to anyone mainly because of the computers’ stability and service offered by Apple. I had a different issue with my 13.3″ Macbook where the handrest cracked. Apple replaced the whole keyboard, trackpad, and handrest – all in an hour while I ate dinner.

If you have issues with your Macbook Pro battery, first calibrate the battery and make sure your firmware is up to date. The thread (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490) explains how to calibrate your battery. Also read Apple’s tips for maximizing your battery life.

If you checked the battery info and find the condition saying Check Battery, check out these threads:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1556806&tstart=1
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1556806&tstart=1
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro/batteryexchange/