Can I replace my battery by one with a different Wh?

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MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009

Mid 2009 Model A1278 / 2.26 or 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo processor EMC 2326

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Niek Sanderman @nieks

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Posted: Nov 19, 2013

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Can I replace my battery by one with a different Wh?

HI,

I'm currently working on a MBP (Mid 2009, a1278, 2.53 gHz, 13"), which has a 58 Wh battery (source: Wikipedia ) while Apple states it has a 60 Wh battery (source: Apple).

Is it possible to replace the battery by this one: "Genuine Original Battery for Apple MacBook Pro 13" Unibody A1322 A1278 63.5Wh". I found this battery on ebay, right here: eBay.

The difference would then be either 5,5 Wh or 3,5 Wh. Does this cause problems? Or would it increase the time I could work on my Macbook Pro? It would help me a lot if you guys could answer me this, because for me (as a student) it would suck to buy the battery and find out I just spent 80 dollars (product+shipping to the Netherlands) on something that won't work.

Thanks for your help,

Regards,

Niek

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Dan @danj

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Posted: Nov 19, 2013

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Nick -

It is true Apple over the years has used better battery technology which has given them more powerful batteries in proceeding years of systems when yours was built.

But, replacing the battery is not the only thing you need to look at here, its the dimensions and the connector and its location so it can fit and connect to your logic board internally.

The IFIXIT guide for replacing the battery has a system that had a 60 Wh battery so you must have a very early version of the system (58 Wh). Given the age of your system it wouldn't be a surprise your battery is not performing as long as it once did. So it would make sense in replacing it. And the eBay images appear to be the same as the IFIXIT's (a small copywrite violation). Here's the guide they pulled some of the images from IFIXIT battery replacement guide. So the battery could be something different. I would make sure to use a method of payment that you can get your money back in case its not what it claims to be. But it could be an honest reason why he used the pics vs doing his own. So I wouldn't discount this as being bogus.

There are some other things that might help you here with your current battery in getting more life out of it:

First do you have any battery monitoring software (other than what Apple supplied)? I would recommend downloading this little gem coconutBattery.
Leverage Activity Monitor to see what is running. While you'll find lots of stuff running you want to see what is not needed from your apps or add-ons that you can remove from your system or de-activate from within the application to use less power. Also think about what you have running the less apps open the better.
If you have a Hard Drive system I would think about upgrading it to a SSD. In the mean time I would run a defragmenter to defrag the HD as the more frag'ed the files are the more power is needed to collect them or save what you have open. SSD's do file management differently so they use less power besides they don't have spinning disks.
Lastly, think about an external battery pack to offer added time if you can't get to an outlet to recharge. Also review this on how to maintain your battery BatteryUniversity

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