1-year old MacBook Pro suddenly not holding charge

My MacBook Pro
(750GB Hard Drive, 8 GB RAM, i5, 2012 model, OS X Mavericks 10.9.4)
is just barely over a year old; I got it in July of last year (and therefore just over my 1-year warranty) suddenly has terrible battery life. I do not know what's up:
Early last week I had it in school and I started the day at 83% battery, and I used it all day long, I got the usual 7 hours, everything was good. I didn't do anything very intensive over the weekend, some word processing, played with Xcode (Beta of Xcode 6) for school, everything's fine. Yesterday I checked the battery (it seemed oddly low) and I had a service battery notice.
I did some research, and checked a few things: my model is rated for 1000 charge cycled before loss of optimum performance, and my cycle count in System Report is 496. I rebooted my MacBook and the "service battery" notice disappears. If I Option-click on battery it states the condition is normal. But I am getting terrible battery life; 3 and a half hours from a full charge.
Last night I did a battery recalibration: charged to full, left it plugged in at full for two hours, discharged 'til it turned off, and left it off all night, then charged it to full today. Now, it alternates between saying I have 3 & half hours to four. Right now it says 4 hours at 80%, which is an improvement, but still very low.
The only two options I can see I have left are taking it into an Apple Store, which would not be ideal, the Province I live in has one Apple Store, and it's a two-hour drive from where I live (and I don't have a car, and no means of acquiring one, woe!) or doing a reset of the System Management Controller as detailed here:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
But that seems a tad on the extreme side, and I don't fully understand the repercussions of that action.
What would you, O Apple Community suggest I do? I could really use some guidance here.
Thanks,
~ Tyler

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Device Name:    bq20z451
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PCB Lot Code:    0
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Hardware Revision:    2
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Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    25
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Wake on Clamshell Open:    Yes
Wake on LAN:    Yes
AutoPowerOff Delay:    14400
AutoPowerOff Enabled:    1
Display Sleep Uses Dim:    Yes
PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep:    0
Standby Delay:    4200
Standby Enabled:    0
Battery Power:
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Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes):    10
Wake on AC Change:    No
Wake on Clamshell Open:    Yes
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