AMITIAE - Thursday 4 July 2013
Cassandra: Battery Replacement for a Mac - Availability Difficulties and Regional Pricing Differences |
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By Graham K. Rogers
Fortunately I was visiting San Francisco that year, so bought one in the Union Square Apple Store. Back at the hotel, I opened the easy-access panel and swapped the batteries. I took the old one back to the Apple store and I presume they disposed of it in a safe manner. And then a year later, the same happened: fading battery, trip to San Francisco, new battery.
Batteries were always expensive for Mac users in Thailand, but these days not only are they not cheap, they are only available in one place (unless you want to take the fire risk of a Chinese replacement). In addition, the battery is not shown in the Apple Online store for Thailand, while it is shown in the online stores for other countries in the region. What this means is a trip (or phone call) to Maccenter who will order a replacement if there is not one in stock. The price for the 15" MacBook Pro battery was 6741 baht, which compares unfavourably with the US price and with the other SE Asian countries, especially as in these countries Apple is able to offer the battery as an online item. With each of the countries (and the US) I went to the top page and in the search box, entered the word, "battery". In every case, except Thailand, I was taken to a page where several replacement types were offered. My comparison figures were done using the Calculator application except in the case of the Philippines and Vietnam, where I used online sources and double-checked:
(As the figure for Vietnam seemed unusually low, I checked this on several sites)
This has screws and insides are exposed: I steer clear of this, so would have gone to an official Apple outlet anyway, as I did with the RAM upgrade on the same MacBook Pro; but the iStudio does not carry the batteries. I was redirected to Maccenter. Such replacements appear to apply to any Apple device with a battery in Thailand. Note that on the information page concerning batteries, Apple states, "You can purchase replacement batteries for many late models of Apple notebooks directly from the Apple Store." Except here unfortunately.
After fully charging at home, I pulled the power source out and left the Mac running for 2 hours. The battery indicator shows I still have 77% left in the battery. I could not have reported that yesterday.]
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. |
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