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Mid-2012 MBP Retina - obsolete?

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708692

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Original poster
Jun 18, 2012
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I have a mid-2012 MBP retina. Just ticked over on 5 years old.

The battery is doing ok, 300 cycles and 83% capacity. However, I'm wondering should I get this booked in for a battery replacement now?

According to Apple (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624), vintage/obsolete products are no longer eligible for repair (including batteries). Vintage/obsolete is at any time after 5 years.

What would you do?
 
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whodean said:
The top case on those mid 2012 rMBPs is currently constrained, if your battery is below 80% you can pay for the battery repair and Apple will give you a 2015 MBP refurbished machine. They did it for me and I've heard of at least a dozen others.
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Wow, an amazing upgrade for just the price of a battery replacement. Would be a no-brainer to me.
 
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Battery is currently hovering around 81-83% design capacity so would they allow that in my case?
 
Definitely replace the battery. You definitely can get at least a few more good years out of her. If nothing else, if you replace the battery today and buy a new MBP in the next year, you've got a nice backup you can use when traveling somewhere that you do not want to take your fancy new machine.
 
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leman said:
I'd wait out until the computer dies its graceful death and then get a new one. Five years is a very respectable age from a laptop.
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And these days the only way to kill a Mac is with planned obsolescence.
I'm typing this on a 08 MacBook with Lion with the last release of Opera that is supported.

OP, I would replace the battery and let it keep chugging on. My 13" 2012 MBP is still an awesome machine. My wife is using it for school and photography and it has no issues. I have only upgraded the RAM on it since I bought it new 4 years ago.
 
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Sorry, it's a 15" MBP retina.

When I bought it I upgraded a few things. It's a 2.6ghz, 16gb ram, 512gb SSD. For me, it's still a flying machine. Runs several heavy VMs concurrently, tons of tabs in chrome with developer tools, etc. It's fine for what I use it for so I'd like to keep it going a bit longer :)
 
leman said:
I'd wait out until the computer dies its graceful death and then get a new one. Five years is a very respectable age from a laptop.
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Wow, and my MacBook (early 2008) will be 10 years old soon and my MacBook Pro 2010 will be 10 in ~3 years.
Both work perfectly well and this is what I'd expect from a ~1500€ laptop. That's the very reason I will never buy HP brands.
I'd say five years is a normal age for a laptop.
 
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https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624

Vintage products are between 5-7 years from last production. Obsolete products haven't been produced for 7+ years.

Obsolete products aren't eligible for service worldwide anymore. Vintage products aren't serviced anymore either, except in the state of California, US and Turkey where they'll still service because of federal laws.


Merkava_4 said:
I was told by an Apple store employee that Apple supports their products for 6 years from the release date.
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He could be right. Considering that a product is for sale usually one year, then the 5-years period starts.
 
I also have a mid 2012 retina 15" with a shot battery... will have to try this out! Either they replace the battery which is fine, but the refurb upgrade would be sensational.
 
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Left it in. Genius ran the AST test and battery had a warning, but in detailed view it was showing as 83% capacity and passed the test. Although, he said it's on its way out and booked it in for a top case assembly change. He said part is currently out of stock but expects it to be completed in 3-5 days.
 
whodean said:
The top case on those mid 2012 rMBPs is currently constrained, if your battery is below 80% you can pay for the battery repair and Apple will give you a 2015 MBP refurbished machine. They did it for me and I've heard of at least a dozen others.
Click to expand...

Is this for real? Apple gave you a base model or what?
 
whodean said:
You know, OP did not specifically state he has a 15". The constrained part only applies for the mid-2012 15" (retina) machine.

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP653?viewlocale=en_CA&locale=en_CA
Click to expand...

Right because they did not make a 'mid 2012' 13 inch Retina machine, the 13 was introduced in 'late 2012'.

Thanks for sharing this whodean, I hope this is the real deal and will wait to see what others on the thread come back with. I would definitely consider this for my mid-2012 to maximize resell value.

My battery life isn't good at all though I don't think it's bad enough to fail Apple metrics at this point. Not sure if that'd have any impact on my chances to receive a refurb 2015 model.

I'd assume, if this is all in fact true, that these refurb replacements would probably be occurring due to the complexity of repairing these batteries which are heavily glued. From what I recall there is a LOT of glue involved and I'm sure that makes these types of repairs lengthy and complicated.
 
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I don't honestly care if they offer/dont offer a refurb machine. The whole point of this is to get a new battery to keep the machine going for the next 5 years :)
 
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