I just bought a MBP and will be getting it tomorrow. Should I install Coconut Battery asap so that it can record the number of charges or will it know that 2 cycles have been completed even if it's installed after the fact?
Coconut battery doesn't actually do anything other than pull information from Apple's System Profiler. You can install it any time and it will still display the number of cycles your battery has been through up to that point.