When should I replace my battery?

You are doing well with 1500 cycles. And it may not last too much longer if you were to get through the China visit. If your machine is vital to you, I would get it done here and now.

If it were 1000 cycjes I would take the chance but having gone so much further than normal, when the warning comes up, it may be much shorter in time.

rbouwens wrote:

So I'm living in a small city in China and there isn't an official Apple store close by (though there are many fake/unofficial ones). I think it'd be better at this point to get it done sooner so that I'm not at the point where I need to urgently replace it and have to travel.

What city are you in? Even smaller cities in China (where small can mean 4 million people) might have an Apple Authorized Service Provider. Yours is definitely under the 80% battery health where they'll do it. The hard part might be if you can't navigate the Apple China website to get an appointment.

The issue with getting an aftermarket battery is that once it's in there Apple might consider it to have been tampered with. They strictly consider it to be something that only an Apple Store or an authorized repair place should touch. I know it's easy to do, but that's kind of a line in sand that Apple has drawn.

rbouwens wrote:

I used a translator to search for authorized locations and it does appear that the closest ones are in Zhengzhou.

I'm kind of surprised for a city of 4 million.

I'd be hesitant to recommend anything other than an Apple OEM battery. Most of the A1322-equivalent aftermarket batteries for the 13" Unibody MBP are junk. Today there was a guy complaining that his would shut down unexpectedly when it was displaying about 70%. There are some that might be better, but it might be difficult for you to get one. Can you live with the reduced battery life for now until you can get an OEM battery installed, because once you put in an aftermarket battery Apple has an excuse to never touch it again since it's an "unauthorized repair".

Good luck with it anyways.

DoKha wrote:

What part of China? I believe Apple has stores in China as well. Your battery should be fine, I would enjoy your time in China and wait if you can. You can always just plug it in.

Earlier he said Henan Province - city of Kaifeng. The closest Apple Store is in Zhengzhou (nicknamed "iPhone City" because of the huge Foxconn plant there). It's about 45 minutes by regular train, or 20 by high speed train. Another issue would be communication if they don't have it in stock, where they would have to call back when it's in. I'd think an Apple Store might note that the customer doesn't speak Chinese and have an English speaker call.

郑州万象城 - Apple Store 零售店 - Apple (中国)

What part of China? I believe Apple has stores in China as well. Your battery should be fine, I would enjoy your time in China and wait if you can. You can always just plug it in.

You should get a warning that will tell you to replace the battery. And that is the point (after so many cycles) when I would say "do it". There will always be an element of uncertainty about exactly how long it will be before it shuts down. If it is truly important to the visit you won't welcome that uncertainty.

Bite the bullet. Get it done.

To clarify, even if Apple doesn't consider it "user serviceable" it's incredibly easy to replace the battery with the right tools. They put a label on the battery that warns against removal except by "authorized service personnel". They use odd tri-wing screws to secure the battery in place. But it's held in place with two screws and no glue. I don't see any reason why they would need to keep your MBP. You could just as well bring it back when it gets there and they do it while you wait.

Just curious - do you have an SSD? I just installed one a couple of weeks ago and I'm really blown away by what it's done to improve the usability of my MBP compared to using a hard drive.

rbouwens wrote:

I’m in Kaifeng, Henan province. According to the Apple website the closest Apple store is in Zhengzhou, Henan.

Locating an Apple Store is the easy part for me since I can do that in English. I don't read Chinese, so navigating the website to find an authorized repair facility is pretty difficult unless I get some help from a friend. How's your Chinese? I get about this far and I can't make any more guesses:

MacBook Pro - 官方 Apple 支持

rbouwens wrote:

I’ve never studied Chinese. I’d need to use a translator

I wasn't making any assumptions so I hedged a bit. I've been in China before, can't read Chinese, and can understand a simple conversation in Mandarin (but maybe not local dialects). Whenever I'm there I'm totally dependent on someone else to help me get around. But I found a lot of people who are happy to practice their English so maybe that could be helpful.

I'm trying to see what I can find from my location in the US, and no matter what it always seems to default to the United States when I try to locate any Apple repair facility. I think it matters where you're accessing the internet. If you can get some local help I'm pretty sure they can locate where an AASP is in Kaifeng. Good luck with it. I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one Apple authorized repair ship in a place as big as Kaifeng.

rbouwens wrote:

Update: I’m at the Apple Store now in Kunming (where my friend lives). My battery status has changed to “replace soon” and the battery has been “consumed.” They said they can get a new battery in a few days.

OK. That was fast. I've actually been to Kunming. Lots of gardens I recall. And the location of the infamous fake Apple Store.

This place?

昆明 - Apple Store 零售店 - Apple (中国)

If I might ask, how much?