Reviews for Rechargeable Battery - 15-inch MacBook Pro (aluminum)

The product itself needs 5 stars because it's the exact battery you need for MBP Late 2008 and, so far, it's working fine.
I am taking out a star since I am not happy with the fact that the same battery (that came when I bought my MBP) became swollen. Be aware of that.

I have been reading all these bad reviews for the MBP battery pack and honestly I couldn't disagree more. Beside the fact that it is a bit costly (130dollars? com'on! I would say 90dollars would be reasonable), the battery did well all these years. I am sure people have different experience, although on my previous PowerBook I had also a good battery experience; I changed the battery once on the fourth year, half a year before I got my MBP.
I bought my MBP on Oct 2008, just a few days after the redesign model launched. So since the beginning of Nov 2008 I have been using my computer every single day, mainly as a desktop replacement. Just for you to get an idea, the iStatNano widget (I really don't know how accurate it is) shows 1232 cycles and 74% health. I have to say that the health was around 90-95% all these years and has been falling the last month noticeably.
I have been unplugging my Mac everytime it reached 100% (or 99%, sometimes it never got to 100) and plugging it in after the "battery running low" notification (it is extremely easy to do so with the magsafe). Other than that I didn't take any extra care.

Will I buy a new battery? Well, my MBP is kind of old, a friend of mine has the 2010 model and it really goes superfast (i5/7 chip vs the core 2 duo.. huge difference).

I will probably get a third party battery till the (much anticipated) new MBPs are launched end of 2012 or early 2013. Apple is definitely losing some clients with that kind of pricing.

PS I am really curious of how much it costs to all these people who own the "non-user replaceable" MBPs to get a new battery pack..

This is a standard battery for the older MacBook Pro's. To the people complaining about not getting 8 hours of battery life, you are confusing different models. Up until at least late 2008, the MacBook Pro's had removable batteries which lasted 3-4 hours (2-3 more realistically). Apple never advertised these as having 7-8 hours. The newer models with the non-removable batteries are capable of lasting 7 hours, give or take an hour. The fact that these newer models have much larger internal built-in batteries is the reason why they last that long.

Batteries, along with everything included in the box are covered under the protection plan. Did i go through 2 batteries? Yes. Was it a completely free swap out when I visited the store (the first time) and called apple care (The second time)? Absolutely.

Lets be smart here folk.

I have gotten a MacBook Pro that was released late August of 2008 and so far, the battery of it was fine. At first it did last long as 7 or 8 hrs... and that's just surfing the internet with music playing. My screen is dimmed to the lowest setting and when it's dark and they lit up very brightly once another light source is turned on and I had to lower its brightness back down to 1 notch. Only time I end up draining the battery easily is when I play a game like TheSims3, that takes a lot of power to play even Spore does that too. WoW, it's fine. This MacBook Pro that I gotten was from a school that bought the MacBook Pros because the students are require to have one if in graphic design or something else. Other degrees uses windows laptops. I was impressed that this lasts much longer than a windows laptop since most at the time only stay on up to 2.5 hrs to 3hrs max. Now I'm not sure, I really do want to keep this one alive its just that once in awhile, with 24 or 27% of life is left as it discharges, it just dies instantly. It's either the battery isnt well or its the firmware of the hardware in the macbook pro. I check on my battery's life by using an app called coconutbattery. designed for macbooks and macbook pros to give you the life of your battery and stuff. It's just odd that it suddenly shuts itself off with 54 mins left of battery run before it needs to be charged again. It doesn't happened often just once in every 3 or 5 months it does that. Honestly I really like my macbook pro and I grew up with apple computers until 7th grade when I was force to use windows which still not fond of. OS of the mac sure has changed since I used apple ii as a kid. Anyhow, it still runs long and strong for me to this day. ^__^

I'm not sure how different people are using there battery, frequent partial drains, incomplete full charges or what. I'm not a super-concientious user but I do try to keep my machine plugged in when possible and am very impressed with the consistency of the battery life (relative to past Dell's) and endurance. CoconutBattery 2.6.6 application says that my battery is at 97% of it's original capacity after 11 months of use and 94 load-cycles. Not bad in my opinion.

Let's be honest - $130 is a lot to pay for this battery, especially given Apple's tainted reputation with their notebook batteries. Still - the unibody MBP uses a 50 watt battery, whereas the previous gen had a 60 watt - and lab tests show the battery life in this model has declined. A single battery is not an option for power users.

This battery comes with an attatchable plastic cover. It's likely because the battery has two centimeter-wide jutting elements that could be easily broken off in a gear bag. I like this, though - because it will also stop dust from touching the metal contacts on the battery.

You pay to play when you go with an Apple notebook. It's expensive, and I don't expect to get more than two years of use from it - but it's still a solid piece of gear.