Replacement battery for Macbook Air 2011: equal to or better than original I need to replace a battery for my Macbook Air 13" mid-2011. There is no Apple's own repair service where I live, and I'm fairly savvy with electronics to do my own repairs. 

How can I identify batteries for sale that are either genuine Apple parts or determine if alternative replacement batteries they are at least equal, but preferably better than, the original MacBook Air battery I have. 

By "equal or better" I mean that it lasts at least as many cycles. I.e. after equal number of charges, it keeps Macbook running roughly as long as the genuine battery on a single charge, given the equal load.
(this answer was written for the previous edition of the question)



I didn't find any "most robust and lasting" choice yet, but I contacted iFixit re their replacement battery, and this is what I found out.


They claim that they sell the battery:


manufactured by the same company that manufactures Apple's battery
its initial power-on time on a single charge is better compared to the original battery: "buying a brand new battery will get you back to where your computer was [in same time between charges] when you first bought it"
there's 6-month warranty for a case if it performs poorly at customer's computer

However:


I failed to get any comment on how it can be possible that Apple allows its manufacturer to sell parts that Apple itself doesn't normally sell (which is the case for MBA-2011 batteries)
the sales rep couldn't provide any tests proving the "with better life" statement, nor even confirm that such tests were ever performed: "Unfortunately I do not have any tests to show [better life / better time between charges] as we have found those to not be needed"
could not confirm that any part of these statements are true:


the replacement will last comparable number of recharge cycles as the battery installed by an official Apple service
the replacement's poweron time on a single charge will be the same (or ideally better) than how could original battery installed by Apple service perform, at (most) every point in the battery life




The above data doesn't exclude what I experienced with low-quality third-party batteries for non-Apple products: initially they start with unprecedented time on a single charge, but after few months time on a charge deteriorates to less than an hour.

But let's see what answers a question on performance of iFixit batteries will bring.