02-23-2025, 10:00 PM
sekker wrote:
1) It's not TOO hard to replace those batteries - the swelling of the modules actually can make it quite easy to do. iFixit and OWC tutorials make it straightforward. If you've replaced an internal optical drive or similar type of repair in the past, it would be like riding a bicycle.
2) If you want to replace your Mac, the 2016-2019 machines are not too bad. The 2018 models use the second gen butterfly keyboards. To keep those working longer, get a keyboard cover.
The main reason I would not recommend the 2018 machine is that a base model, 8/512GB M1 MBA would run circles around any 2018 machine. So I cannot recommend spending a lot of $$ on that 2018 model.
I have a 2017 MacBook Pro and the batteries are all swelled up. I can rock it like a rocking chair. I figure it's going to blow up at some point, but it still works. It's harder to type on too. It suffered the same thing a few years ago and Apple replaced whatever was necessary to fix it, but it's doing it again.