Macbook 14" M1 Pro - Warranty / Battery Cycle Count

[bogdan127]

Hello,

Here are my questions:
1. Can you reset the battery cycle count?
Im asking to make sure I haven't bought a used macbook.

2. Why every time I plug in the charger - even if I have 50% battery, the cycle count increases?
According to the official documentation from here it should not increase https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585
"For example, you could use half of your laptop's charge in one day, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two. In this example, it might take several days to complete a cycle."

3. Is it normal for a brand new machine to come with 0 battery?
My previous Macbook when first opened was around 50% battery.

4. Can a brand new MacBook have a wrong activation date?

5. What other ways are to check if the MacBook is brand new?

Here's some context:

I recently bought a new Macbook Pro 14" M1 Pro - it was bought from an authorised Apple seller and everything was sealed.
When I've first opened it the battery was completely empty.
I've charged it and checked battery cycle count which was 1.

Now every time I plug in the charger, even if the battery is 50% charged, the cycle count increase, and according to this documentation it should not

Determine battery cycle count for Mac laptops - Apple Support

Learn how to determine the number of cycles your Mac laptop's battery has.

support.apple.com

Another thing that was off was when I check the System Settings -> General -> About it said I have left around 7 months of Apple warranty - it should be 1 year.
When I tried to check the warranty by the serial number at http://checkcoverage.apple.com it said the it could not be verified and I should contact Apple support.

I contacted Apple support and they changed it to 1 year and told me that things like this might happen for brand new machines because in some cases the date the machine was bought by the authorised seller is messed up with the activation date - I don't really believe this - but again the box was sealed, everything looked brand new.

My battery health is 100% but coconut battery shows 97.9% ? Is this correct?
Also coconut battery shows the battery age as 263 days and manufactured date 2022-08-01, should this raise any concerns since I just bought this MacBook?

 

[seasurfer]

Battery cycle count cannot be reset, at least not without tools from the factory (I'm not sure it's even possible). That would be kind of like rolling back the odometer of a car.

I could see a brand new machine coming with 0 battery charge if the machine sat in the box on a shelf for an extended period of time. If Coconut battery says the battery was manufactured in August of last year and the computer sat in its box for 7-8 months without being hooked to a charger then it might easily drop to a low charge state.

Since that happened, the battery management hardware probably needs to be calibrated, which may explain some of the weird behavior that you're seeing with the cycle counts/battery percentages, etc. Calibrate the battery according to the procedure given on Apple's website and you should start to see more normal behavior.

It sounds like this reseller ordered the computer 5 months prior to you buying it and it sat on the shelf until then. Apple's Warranties are supposed to begin from the time the end user purchases the machine. Since most people these days buy directly from Apple/through an Apple retail store the end user's purchase date is the same as the date the machine is bought from Apple they match up. Their system is supposed to account for the fact that when you buy from a reseller, the date the computer was purchased from Apple is different from the date the end user purchases it, but, as Apple Support told you, that can be confused. If the machine truly was used and somehow packaged to appear brand new, the support person would not have reset the starting date for the Warranty.

 

[bogdan127]

Hi and thanks for the reply.
Regarding the battery calibration, could you provide an official documentation since I can’t find anything from Apple only from some 3rd party forums.

 

[hg.wells]

Be mindful as well that any battery issues / cycle counts would be tested by Apple utilizing their own tools. Tools like Coconut battery are good, but have also been proven to not be 100% reliable and can sometimes provide inaccurate information.