u/lonememe

Still holding onto my iPhone 13 mini and finally went to replace the battery this week for the second or third time with this phone. Figured I’d share the experience for fellow holdouts:

In past years, battery replacements were easy. This time was kind of a mess.

My battery health was still around 83%, but real-world performance had gotten noticeably worse, especially traveling or in poor signal areas where the phone was hunting for service constantly.

I called Apple support beforehand because apparently you just can’t directly call stores. Support contacted the store for me and said they had “limited stock” of 13 mini batteries and recommended I grab the earliest appointment possible.

I show up for my 11:30 appointment the next morning andddd the battery was already gone.

Not only that, but they also told me they like to have replacement displays on hand because the screen can break during battery replacement, and they didn’t have those either. So I'm not sure it would've mattered much. Another store had the battery but not the display. They wanted to order parts and have me come back in about 5 business days, then I’d only have a short pickup window before they released the parts again.

At that point I’d already burned half the day driving around, so I checked Best Buy/Geek Squad. Similar story there: they couldn’t pre-order a display “just in case,” only after breakage actually happened.

Ended up walking into a local repair shop next door and they swapped the battery in 25 minutes for about the same price Apple charges.

Now I’m sitting here with mild aftermarket battery remorse and anxiety wondering if I made a terrible decision. What am I in for there?

Anyway, PSA for fellow 13 mini people:

• Don’t assume Apple has batteries in stock anymore
• Earlier appointments matter
• Ask about display inventory too
• If you need your phone same-day, have a backup plan

Curious how many of you are still repairing these instead of upgrading.