15" Macbook Pro Battery Question.

[Wavechaser]

I've had my Macbook Pro for a little over a year now.

I am very careful to not have it plugged in all day, in fact I take it to work and make sure it gets down to around 30 or so percent before plugging it in to charge it up.

I also do full power battery cycles at least once a month (sometimes twice).

At a little over a year and 215 "cycles", I am now at 92% battery health. It's a little disconcerting that i've been so careful about draining the battery and completing full battery cycles that my battery is down almost 10% health already. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong which is killing my battery more than it should?

 

[treestar]

I think 92% is even a little better than normal. Well done! It was never going to stay at 100%, no matter how diligent you were.

 

[Wavechaser]

I think 92% is even a little better than normal. Well done! It was never going to stay at 100%, no matter how diligent you were.

Well that's good to hear, at least I know I'm not doing something wrong.

Don't get me wrong, the battery life on this laptop far outperforms any laptop I've ever had, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong.

 

[treestar]

Think about your battery a little less and enjoy the weekend!

 

[newmacuser14]

I have had my 13 inch MBP for 15 weeks and its already at 90% health. I don't get why its so low already, because I too watch it closely and never charge it unless its at 6% on lower.

 

[bigjobby]

Take a read of this: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

More modern batteries have built-in memory to help them maintain their health so its not really necessary to do a big drain before a full recharge to maintain health. In fact, it might be more detrimental but this practice was more common for older generation batteries. I'm no battery expert, just my 2¢.

BTW, my 16 month MBP is on 210 cycles and 96% health by using the battery when I feel like it, on charge most of the time and a recalibrate every 2-3 months.

 

[swedefish]

I think everyone is reading too much into battery maintenance. I've used my MBP 13 for two years and I've never followed any special instructions for how to charge the battery: I take it with me when I head out and sometimes I end up draining the battery and sometimes I don't--I just don't give it much thought and I still get 98%.

 

[Badrottie]

I don't know where you got health percentage but on my powerbook G4 that I bought last May I can see the battery is good and count only 166 but the battery only hold for less than 20 minutes.