My personal experience is very different. In 2011-ish (don't remember the exact date), we noticed that the battery on my wife's white (2006) Macbook had starte

My personal experience is very different. In 2011-ish (don't remember the exact date), we noticed that the battery on my wife's white (2006) Macbook had started to swell. I looked into it and realized that there was a recall on the battery, and you could have gotten a free replacement, but the recall timeframe had expired. I took the macbook to the Apple store anyway, as the computer worked perfectly otherwise (in fact, we didn't really notice any significant battery life issues anyway), and asked them about the recall. They said, yes, the recall had expired, but they could do a one-time special thing and replace the battery for free anyway. They did that, and also replaced the keyboard "tray" which had started to crack a little bit. The macbook still works perfectly today - 7+ years after purchase. Second, the replacement cost for the "un-replaceable" battery in my 2012 Macbook Air is $129[1]. That is not "distressingly close to the price of a shiny new mac", and really not that far off of the cost of any other replacement battery for a machine in its class. [1] http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United...