Macbook Pro battery failing at 181 cycles

Hey John-

I have an early 2011 15" MBP that also had a failing battery recently I had about 3 times as many cycles on it, but it would only last about 30 minutes with a single charge. If you check out the battery specs in Apple>About This Mac>More Info>System Report>Power, it will give you a breakdown of the maximum charge that the battery can hold. Apple designates 1000 cycles until it cannot hold any charge at all. You are on your way to that, but given the amount of time you have had the computer, it doesn't seem too early to replace the battery. Mine was around 1500mAh max. charge and was giving me the 'Replace Now' notification under the Battery icon at the top (and under Health in the System Report).

I found a genuine Apple battery on eBay with 0 cycles for $80, bought a special screwdriver kit from Amazon for $10, and replaced the battery myself in about 10 minutes. It's very easy to do. Check out https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Early+2011+Battery+Repl acement/5116 for a guide on how to replace the battery yourself. Best of luck!

Apple designates 1000 cycles until it cannot hold any charge at all. You are on your way to that, but given the amount of time you have had the computer, it doesn't seem too early to replace the battery.

I'm not so sure about that. Originally Apple claimed 80 percent of original capacity after 1000 cycles:

Macbook battery life is terrible!

But that being said, the cycle count isn't the only factor that influences the battery capacity. Age, temperature and general treatment of the battery are important too. Only 181 cycles after three years strikes me as extremely low: even my two year old rMBP that runs on AC-power most of the time shows more than 200 cycles.