my laptop says service battery but im still getting my hours out of the battery like normal but been like service battery for like 5 days straight now so do i need a new battery only had it since december 2010 normally the batteries last 3-5 years

Take to the Apple store and let the Genius look at it. You have nothing to loose. The warning is not there to be ignored.

Ciao.

If you go to the apple in the upper left corner of the screen, About This Mac, More Info, System Report, Hardware, Power you will find battery information. If it does not say Condition Normal, you need to have the machine checked. You can also look at hte Capacity and Charge remaining, does the ratio come close to the reported charge in the upper right corner of the screen?

How many cycles does the report say you have had? Lithium-Ion batteries typically are good for 300-1,000 cycles depending on the exact class of battery. But that is a typical numbrer, batteries fail with less, some are good for much more.

Best approach is to visit an Apple Retail genius bar and have it checked out.

In the MacBookPro 2010 the battery expected life (to 80% capacity) is 1000 cycles. Not number of years or months. The indication given in the System Information is important. Also know that when a Lithium battery is at 80% capacity the rest of the life is very short, and it can die very fast. So follow the advice of Herr Ogel and Herr Landry. You could try re-calibrating the battery but it can die in the process when really in its last days.

Lithium-Ion battery calibration does not calibrate the battery but the charge reporting circuitry. That is done by discharging until the unit shuts down at about 1% charge remaining, and DO NOT force it to restart, but recharge fully before operating again.

This is done for the reporting circuitry, does not actually calibrate the battery.

If you look further down on the power report, you will see a line that starts with Condidtion...does that say Normal or something else?

What Landry said is correct: recalibrating does not revive your battery itself, it just resets the eletrical circuit t(to make sure that the reporting is correct). In your post you did not give the "battery health" information, please do so.

Do not recalibrate but keep the charger connected, before you take the risk of running the battery down. You can use a little app called Coconut Battery to have some more info about the battery: download it and start it, give the details to us: http://www.coconut-flavour.com/.

It would be a good idea to drop by an Apple genius bar and have it worked on...even if it is only one year old, something is going wrong with the battery and you are better off getting it taken care of before it suddenly fails and you loose data.

yes, last days/weeks, but too quick, I guess, for a year old like Landry said.