Hi, I’d like to ask for some advice about my iPad.

I have an iPad mini 5 that I bought in mid-2020. It still holds charge for about three days with my usual usage (doomscrolling, playing music, reading, etc.), though I used to get about five days on a single charge back in 2020.

I connected it to my Mac and checked the battery health with Coconut Battery; it reports 83% health with 614 cycles.

I started checking my options but I’m not really sure if it’s worth it:

  1. Apple won’t give me a price for the replacement (I suspect they might not have parts; the page lists 118 USD).
  2. 3rd Party says that battery repair is about 200 USD, which I find excessive for an iPad this old.
  3. iFixit: Pricing for parts is about 53 USD, but shipping is 89 USD, and it doesn’t include everything I need due to shipping restrictions.
  4. Getting iFixit tools and the battery through Amazon is about 70 USD, which I find acceptable, except the battery doesn’t have reviews at all (capacity 5173mAh seems about right).

What should I do? Keep using it as is? Try to replace the battery myself with Amazon stuff? Has anyone had experience with DIY battery replacements (I don’t mind much warning messages)?

Any suggestions are appreciated!

  • blitzen@lemmy.ca
    5·
    2 months ago

    FYI, you don’t need to use a third party tool to pull battery info. Those stats are built into the battery settings pane.

      • blitzen@lemmy.ca
        5·
        2 months ago

        This says otherwise, and I can confirm on my iPad Mini.

        I suppose an older iPad mini may be excluded, which appears to be what’s happening here.

        • th3dogcow@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          I guess that must be it. The two older iPads I have don’t display battery stats, even though one is running the latest iPadOS. Don’t know why they have to gate-keep such features from older devices.

          • blitzen@lemmy.ca
            2·
            2 months ago

            If I’m charitable, I suppose it might be a hardware sensor not present in older models.

            • MrLLM@ani.socialOPEnglish
              2·
              2 months ago

              Not really sure. Back in October 2021, I had my iPad jailbroken and could see the battery information with some tweaks.