iPhone 13 PM Battery Replacement Experience
So my iPhone 13PM was nearing 4 years since I bought it, and I’d been noticing significant performance drops quite frequently off late. The screen brightness would dim almost instantly out in daylight and wouldn’t normalise for quite some time. The phone would overheat quite easily outdoors and also while charging. And of course, battery life itself was quite bad relative to how it was new. I really love this iPhone and upgrading just didn’t make sense to me. So I went ahead and got my battery replaced at iCare, an authorised service centre in Bengaluru, India.
Previous battery — 1422+ charge cycles, 82% max capacity. Checked with the Apple Support app once and it said ‘service recommended’ although it did go back to saying ‘performance normal’ after some time.
The battery replacement experience was quite good, had booked myself an appointment beforehand. They’d earlier said I could confirm the replacement and return once they’d retrieved a new battery (it was out of stock). However after I went they said they could replace and handover the phone within a few hours as they did have a new battery on hand. They initially quoted ₹7,705 all inclusive of taxes and service charges. Right before I was about to pay, an employee walked in and told the person billing to check whether there were any discounts applicable. I was pleasantly surprised when the new billing price was now lowered to ₹6,741. Always remember to simply ask if there’s any discounts available. Sometimes you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t asked.
Well it’s been about a week since and there’s been quite a few noticeable improvements. Some more obvious ones are much better battery life (good for around 9-10h of screen on time), screen doesn’t dim as easily outdoors in the sun, phone feel refreshed and overall smoother.
Some equally noticeable but not so obvious improvements that I hadn’t thought of earlier — the phone’s touch sampling rate feels back to normal (I could sense the touchscreen not responding that immediately earlier), the haptics are so much better and tighter now - they are sharp and quite strong. The phone doesn’t get that hot anymore, even while charging. The speakers are now quite loud and clear (Apple service centres also clean the speaker grilles so that has also contributed significantly).
To wrap up, I can definitely recommend a battery replacement as an alternative to upgrading. The cost is quite reasonable, much more economical than getting a new phone (even refurbished). I’m quite confident I should be able to extract another year or two of usage before upgrading (the phone would’ve stopped receiving major OS updates by then anyway so that’s fine).
Go ahead, share your thoughts and any questions you may have if you’re too looking to get a fresh battery. Thanks for your time :)