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Comment by macjohnmcc | Hacker News Reader

A house in our neighborhood burned to the ground and the fire was started by a laptop battery (replacement) charging. It shot up through the roof of the kitchen into attic and started a fire that quickly consumed the house. I would never put in a battery not from the manufacturer after that not that that is a guarantee.

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The problem with bad/unsafe replacement batteries is that Apple intentionally makes it impossible to obtain an original battery.

If you could just walk into an Apple store and buy the original, Apple-endorsed battery at a fair price there would be no reason to go with third-party (and potentially unsafe) batteries.

Hmm. I walked into an Apple store and got a "Top Case Assembly with Battery Replacement" service for my 15" MacBook Pro. It was $199 total, which I thought was a fair price.

> It was $199 total, which I thought was a fair price.

I'm a bit curious how you came to that conclusion the price was "fair". Did you compare it to the prices of others providing the service?

You mean, others that are providing real authorized battery replacements from the manufacturer of the original equipment? Ones that should be more likely to be covered by insurance if they do cause a house fire?

Those alternatives?

Well, replacing that battery is not that easy, I assumed 30 minutes labor in total, the battery needs to be shipped, too, and there is tax, so out of $199 the battery itself was perhaps $100 or so.

In other words, if I were to do this elsewhere, I would need to buy the battery, ship it, and pay someone (or perform the task myself) to do the replacement. The $199 price seemed entirely reasonable, especially as this was in California at the time.

I think the price seems "outrageous" only if you ignore the costs of labor, shipping and taxes.

It's a fair price for an entire top case assembly and labor. However it's wasteful and it's definitely not fair that this is the only possible option - that is still a lot of money for some people and they should have the possibility of buying the part only and doing the repair themselves.

I think Apple should have to sell OEM parts at a competitive price to avoid hazards and take away the monopoly.

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