Macbook 16 very low battery capacity

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Level 1

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Macbook 16 very low battery capacity

Recently I've noticed dimishing battery life on my MacBook Pro 16. On investigation, System Information reports Full Charge Capacity to be 7056 mAh, just 80.2% of the original 8790 mAh. The device is 9 months old and the battery shows 95 cycles.

Ordinarily I wouldn't expect to see this scale of capacity drop before at least several hundred cycles; the 13" Pro this replaced showed about 93% after 2 years and 170 cycles for example.

Clearly something is wrong, so my question is what is Apple's threshold to consider a battery faulty under warranty? Is it the same 80% they quote for AppleCare? If so, are they going to tell me there's nothing wrong because it's 80.2?

Diagnostics show no problems and the battery status is marked as 'Good'. For clarity, my question is specifically about Apple's tolerances for battery capacity, not battery life.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 18, 2020 12:19 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

Level 10

188,472 points

Oct 18, 2020 1:21 PM in response to dunc_r

dunc_r wrote:

Recently I've noticed dimishing battery life on my MacBook Pro 16. On investigation, System Information reports Full Charge Capacity to be 7056 mAh, just 80.2% of the original 8790 mAh.

Diagnostics show no problems and the battery status is marked as 'Good'. For clarity, my question is specifically about Apple's tolerances for battery capacity, not battery life.

When battery health management is turned on, your battery's maximum charging capacity might be limited. Although the feature is designed to improve your battery's lifespan,

About battery health management in Mac notebooks— 10.15.5

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211094

if you still think this is an issue then call AppleCare Support at 1-800-APLCARE (800-275-2273)

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Answer 2

Crynay

Level 3

649 points

Oct 18, 2020 1:52 PM in response to dunc_r

According to this article, the answer is yes - 80% at 1000 charge cycles for MacBooks.

When I had my battery replaced, they said it had to hit a certain number to get replaced under warranty. Since it was at 85% they said it didn't qualify.

In your case, I would definitely call Apple support to see what they can do since 80.2% in 9 months seems odd.

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Answer 3

dunc_r Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 18, 2020 1:28 PM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks, I'll try turning battery health management off and see if the capacity improves.

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