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> 1 year later, the battery starts dying out. Go to the authorized repairer and it was going to cost me > €1K to replace the battery since I had to replace the entire keyboard and trackpad to do that.

So what you seem to be saying is that Apple laptop batteries cannot be replaced for less than €1K if the laptop is out of warranty?

Absolutely incredible. If that's the case, it should really be reported as front page news so that nobody else makes the mistake of buying an Apple laptop ever again.

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair

It costs $249 for a 2019 15" MBP battery (not 15', not sure they ever made them that big, GP's laptop may be special). GP's issue is that Apple, per their story, wanted to replace the keyboard and trackpad as well and wanted to charge more on top of the battery replacement.

I got the cost confirmed by two different repair shops. They don't officially replace the battery only, but the whole top case assembly replaced with a cost of something ~€750 in 2021. I checked the emails we exchanged.

The part is the same, but the price changes depending on the cause code entered into GSX; if it's sold as a battery replacement, the cost of the replacement topcase is much less than if you spilt a drink on the keyboard.

The AASP was screwing you over, either deliberately or by ignorance.

Batteries are a replaceable component, apple doesn't make it easy but it's not particularly harder than any other device. It's not soldered in and doesn't touch the top-case.

Now: if the battery expanded and caused internal damage (bending the top case and damaging the keyboard) then what you said makes sense, but that's a pretty glaring omission if so.

If the battery expanded and caused internal damage after 2 years of use then there is clearly a design issue.

damn. cheap $400 Toshiba laptop from 2013 still going strong. and another one from 2015.

You're not getting the same performance out of that laptop, as you're getting from a new macbook pro. Don't be obtuse.

You are right, the Toshiba is giving more performance than the MacBook when summed up over its useful life.

I'll say good luck with getting any meaningful work out of it.

LOL

The comparison is not to a new macbook pro, it's to a 2019 one. The 2019 macbook pro is currently giving 0 performance as it is a brick. 2013 Toshiba wins

The laptops still work well for their intended purposes. And the PC laptop I paid $800 for in 2021 still works great today too.

Meanwhile Andy could’ve gotten Apple Care for 3 years for $140 USD (~ €128).

I've worked in laptop repair for various brands before (Acer, Dell, Compaq). Whenever people ask my advice I always recommend they buy a laptop extended warranty, and I buy it myself. It usually pays for itself on the first service call.

That said, a thousand Euros to replace a battery is ludicrous. No consumer should be charged that, warranty or no.

For reference, I recently got a second hand recent ThinkPad with a dud battery and bought the genuine replacement battery for AU$200 (€123) and could replace it myself as it's an FRU.

Apple should not be charging literally an entire order of magnitude more for the same part, regardless of the service cost.

They don't charge that much. As per the Apple website, they charge $249 to replace the battery in a 2019 16" MacBook Pro.

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair

Top poster to this thread has confirmed the cost was €750

Apple does things cheaper in the US. The imperial periphery gets value-extracted much harder.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/mac/repair

289 EUR for all 15"/16" MBPs

The only reason they'd require a full top case replacement would be if there was additional damage making them unable to guarantee safety of the new battery

It doesn't solve the problem when it happens 3y+1d.

AppleCare is perpetually extendable now. I still have AppleCare on my 2018 MacBook Pro.