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Battery Cycle Retina Macbook Pro

M

MrManwelo

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2010
92
0
This is probably a dumb question, but I've googled to no avail.

I've read all the advice and everything about how to properly care for you macbook battery, but I'm still confused as to one thing:

What is a battery cycle? How is it defined?

I thought a battery cycle was a fully charged - fully depleted - fully charged again. However, on receiving my Retina Macbook Pro yesterday and charging it up fully once, I'm already on 2 cycle counts. I read somewhere that one guy who had a regular Macbook Pro was on 48 cycles after 14 months. I want to do what he's doing haha!
 
miles01110 said:
A battery cycle is a full charge and discharge cycle. 4 discharges/charges from 100% to 75% is a cycle. Two discharges/charges from 100% to 50% is a cycle. etc.
Click to expand...

ahhh, i see. that makes sense. So keeping it plugged into the AC will keep the count down.
 
A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so it may take several days to complete a cycle.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1519

So if you suck that battery dry each day till the machine dies then recharge, that's one cycle.
 
A cycle is losing and gaining 100% over any amount of time. Could be 10% a day for 10 days could be 1% a day for 100 days.
 
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