Chosen Solution
Hi, all, I’d love some advice about whether I should move forward with this repair. I sent in my laptop (early 2015 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 3.1GHz Dual-core Intel i7 with Retina Display, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM) to Apple Repair to get a battery replacement (~$230). My battery life had been getting worse and worse and had started acting wonky in the previous 1-2 months. I just got a notification that the repair estimate has been changed to the following: “There is a hardware issue affecting the normal function of the main logic board” (~$500). I called in for more information, and wasn’t able to get any info about what component on the logic board has failed. They also weren’t able to tell me whether the computer is still functional (when I sent it in, it was getting a little slow, but generally fine with not so great battery life). If I ask them to send it back without doing the repair, I assume it’s possible that the computer will be returned as a brick, no? I’m a research scientist who used this laptop as my primary work computer for 4 years, so it’s seen some pretty heavy computational use. This machine is not my current primary work computer, though I’d still like to be able to use it to code, etc. I’m not a hardware expert. Is this worth repairing? Or should I take my chances, have it returned, and hold on until it dies completely then buy a new one? Can anyone hazard a guess about the likelihood that, if I get it returned without repairs, that the computer will continue to work at all? Thanks for any insights!
I would ask for it to be returned. And get a second opinion. You can get a Apple original battery for 199 dollars. You check around. Have you checked out the price from ifixit and looked at installing them yourself.
