2021 MBP w/ crap battery: should I replace battery or trade-in?

[AW84]

Have a 2021 14" base model with 16GB/1TB. Despite being advertised as 12+ hours of battery life, this one has only ever gotten 3-5 hours max since new, at 60% brightness and doing only web and music/YouTube. Photoshop or video editing and it's a couple hours at best. If used for a for 10-12 hour work day doing just web and email, it has to be charged three times, so it has 282 cycles on it since purchased early 2022 despite not being used regularly, and is at 89% health. One of the most obvious signs of a problem is that it can fully charge from 0-100 using the 67W in an hour, while it should be 2+ hours. These numbers all vary drastically from what others have claimed to get from their copy of the same MBP.

Admittedly, it went unused for a period early on and may have drained fully for a short time, but again, is still at 89% health.

Genius Bar went through it thoroughly, fully reformatted it, analyzed the battery, said it was fine. My concern is there is a deeper issue and that buying a new battery will have the same result. Knowing this, would you replace the battery at $300, or just cut your losses and trade it in for a new one? With trade-in, it's about $1,200 to purchase new, versus taking a gamble on a $300 battery.

 

[viking_01]

I guess it depends how often you need the battery and how often it's mobile. My choice would be to support it on an external power bank to extend the battery when needed and put up with it until time to upgrade naturally in say 2+ years. There are some cracking power banks with ~85Wh of usable power, close to doubling the battery life for ~400/500g and ~$100. Likewise some 3m USB-C cables + 65W supplies can be had cheaply and help get mains power on e.g. the sofa where you might have previously used the battery.
It'll be a compromise for a while but less upfront cash and keeps more money in your pocket for the next MacBook.
Drifting off topic, I have a couple of Iniu B63 100W/25000mAh/92.5Wh power banks just for this purpose to use with my 2018 15" MBP. It's a heavier solution but works and I'm rarely carrying the laptop bag far.
Even after upgrading the MacBook I'll still have the power banks so while they will age, it's not a completely lost investment. Iniu regularly run discounts on Amazon, at least here in the UK. My experience is that they offer fantastic value and pretty good quality where it matters - in the electronics.

 

[Fishrrman]

If a lot of the MBP's time is "spent on the table" (and not being carried around), you might do better to consider a desktop-format Mac for "next time".

Mac Studio might be a good candidate.
Lots of power.
NO battery problems.

 

[StoneJack]

Have a 2021 14" base model with 16GB/1TB. Despite being advertised as 12+ hours of battery life, this one has only ever gotten 3-5 hours max since new, at 60% brightness and doing only web and music/YouTube. Photoshop or video editing and it's a couple hours at best. If used for a for 10-12 hour work day doing just web and email, it has to be charged three times, so it has 282 cycles on it since purchased early 2022 despite not being used regularly, and is at 89% health. One of the most obvious signs of a problem is that it can fully charge from 0-100 using the 67W in an hour, while it should be 2+ hours. These numbers all vary drastically from what others have claimed to get from their copy of the same MBP.

Admittedly, it went unused for a period early on and may have drained fully for a short time, but again, is still at 89% health.

Genius Bar went through it thoroughly, fully reformatted it, analyzed the battery, said it was fine. My concern is there is a deeper issue and that buying a new battery will have the same result. Knowing this, would you replace the battery at $300, or just cut your losses and trade it in for a new one? With trade-in, it's about $1,200 to purchase new, versus taking a gamble on a $300 battery.

Trade in