My counter example anecdote: I also own a 2012 MacBook Air. In July I brought it to an Apple store just two weeks before my Apple Care support ended. I got a b

My counter example anecdote: I also own a 2012 MacBook Air. In July I brought it to an Apple store just two weeks before my Apple Care support ended. I got a brand new battery for free because the three year old one had "only" 70% capacity left. On the other hand the battery in the Dell laptop I had before got really bad after just one year, right after the one-year guarantee ended. 14 months after I bought the laptop I had to buy a new battery because the old one only lasted 10 minutes anymore. Of those two scenarios I really prefer the Apple one. If you don't have Apple Care anymore you still don't have to bring it to a third-party shop. Apple will replace the batteries for $129 for up to 7 year old laptops: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite...