How to get the best battery life?

[lukester]

I only need to use my MBP occasionally running on the battery. So it basically is a desktop computer. I do let it run on the battery once in a while.
Right now I have about 78 cycles and 95% health.

Is that good, I have a mid 2010 17" laptop.
What is a practice to keep the battery it top condition?

 

[lukester]

just saw the battery thread up top.
However it doesn't say if you should cycle the battery every so often for better performance.

 

[snaky69]

I only need to use my MBP occasionally running on the battery. So it basically is a desktop computer. I do let it run on the battery once in a while.
Right now I have about 78 cycles and 95% health.

Is that good, I have a mid 2010 17" laptop.
What is a practice to keep the battery it top condition?

Seems you've already been doing a good job with 95% after 2.5 years.

 

[Michason]

Seems you've already been doing a good job with 95% after 2.5 years.

Let's say hypothetically, he has had the charger on the Macbook the entire time and is only on 2-5 cycles and 100% health. Wouldn't that be better?

 

[Spink10]

2.5 year old 17 MBP - 309 cycles - 96% health. Just use it.

 

[snaky69]

Let's say hypothetically, he has had the charger on the Macbook the entire time and is only on 2-5 cycles and 100% health. Wouldn't that be better?

Of course, but the chances of the computer remaining at 100% health with 2 to 5 cycles in 2.5 years is somewhat slim.

Not saying it's impossible, just very unlikely. Not using the battery at all is just as bad using it too much...

 

[Blondie :)]

Although the health on your battery says its good, it might actually not be so hot. 78 cycles in two years is only roughly 1.6 cycles per month...

A battery functions much like you do in terms of exercise. If you don't exercise enough, you won't be as healthy as you could be. The battery is pretty much the same. If you don't put enough discharge cycles through it per month, it will eventually become weak and won't hold much of a charge, even though the battery health percentage says its good.

GGJStudios should be here soon to post the battery FAQ (he always shows up in these posts haha), which will answer more of your questions.

 

[T5BRICK]

Apple has plenty of info on their site about proper battery maintenance.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html