Moving from iPad to MacBook Pro

[daynoock]

I've been using iPads for the last 5 years for my day to day browsing, watching Netflix, using Pages etc and I decided to get one of the new MacBook pro's. I had one of the old white MacBooks years ago but mostly used it for university work so it was plugged in most of the time.

I'm finding with this I'll generally charge it fully and then won't plug it back in till the charge is nearly gone, similar to what I'd do with my iPad, is this what most people do or would you leave it plugged in most of the time where available? do most people just close theirs rather than shut it down throughout the day?

can this affect long term battery life?

 

[Stefan johansson]

Not sure how it affect battery life,but from my experience,my a few years old rMBP can last for 2-4 hours of various use withouth being plugged in to external power,guess the newer ones is similar.

 

[TonyK]

Find and install CoconutBattery. It is free. I like it better than the other battery utilities.

As far as use, it depends. If you are plugging into an external monitor, my understanding is you need to have it plugged in for power. So I only connect to my external monitor when my battery needs charging. Otherwise I use it as is, sometimes plugged into a OWC Dock for mouse, keyboard and external HD connections.

When I am doing I always log out, then shut down. Logging out gives me peace of mind that all applications have fully closed. Early on there were some issues with it hanging and moving to the logout then shut down process has seemed to resolve that issue.

Battery life is a concern and I'm sure there are articles related to it on the web that a search with Google could likely help with. I have this concern as well which is why I try to let my battery drain to < 10% before I consider charging... if it can be avoided. Sometimes, there are events/processes going on that require a power connection.

Update: My system gets close to 6 hours of mixed use though I am not using Netflix with it yet. This includes bus-powered USB drives and thumb drives for backup and using WiFi to push other backups to a TimeCapsule and web browsing. Hopefully this helps.

 

[daynoock]

I'll have a look for coconutbattery, thanks!

I won't be plugging it into an external monitor, I stream films to my apple TV from it, and have left it plugged in then but that's about it.

I think because I'm used to not worrying about battery life with my iPad and just charging it maybe once or twice a week I've forgotten that laptops can really drain the battery. I guess I'll just keep an eye on it and try to not let it affect me just enjoying it

 

[ixxx69]

I've been using iPads for the last 5 years for my day to day browsing, watching Netflix, using Pages etc and I decided to get one of the new MacBook pro's. I had one of the old white MacBooks years ago but mostly used it for university work so it was plugged in most of the time.

I'm finding with this I'll generally charge it fully and then won't plug it back in till the charge is nearly gone, similar to what I'd do with my iPad, is this what most people do or would you leave it plugged in most of the time where available? do most people just close theirs rather than shut it down throughout the day?

can this affect long term battery life?

Unless you like to think about your MBP as much as you actually use your MBP, here's some good advice: you don't need any battery utilities, you don't need to do anything special, you don't need to worry about your battery (unless you notice something change significantly from the way it was working before).

Sure, battery life & health is dependent on many factors, but the primary issue is charge cycles... I think the MBP is warrantied for 1000 complete charge cycles (while maintaining at least 80% charge capacity). "Cycles" can be made up of partial drainages and charges, i.e. if you use 25% then charge, and then another 25%, and charge, and so on... when it adds up to a 100%, that's a cycle (it's a tiny bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic concept). So if you let the laptop sit there all day draining battery away when you're not using it, it's going to burn through cycles that much faster. (on the flip side, you don't want to leave it plugged in for months at a time without occasionally at least partially draining the battery).

That being said, how much faster will it burn through cycles compared to keeping it plugged in whenever an outlet is available? Really not that much. And do you really want to spend your own energy constantly thinking about it?

So, bottom line is you don't want to intentionally leave it unplugged in some misguided attempt at battery maintenance, but it's also not worth the effort to seek out plugging it in every chance you get. Keep it charged as needed and at your convenience. Probably like you did with your iPad.

Best of luck!

 

[daynoock]

Unless you like to think about your MBP as much as you actually use your MBP, here's some good advice: you don't need any battery utilities, you don't need to do anything special, you don't need to worry about your battery (unless you notice something change significantly from the way it was working before).

Sure, battery life & health is dependent on many factors, but the primary issue is charge cycles... I think the MBP is warrantied for 1000 complete charge cycles (while maintaining at least 80% charge capacity). "Cycles" can be made up of partial drainages and charges, i.e. if you use 25% then charge, and then another 25%, and charge, and so on... when it adds up to a 100%, that's a cycle (it's a tiny bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic concept). So if you let the laptop sit there all day draining battery away when you're not using it, it's going to burn through cycles that much faster. (on the flip side, you don't want to leave it plugged in for months at a time without occasionally at least partially draining the battery).

That being said, how much faster will it burn through cycles compared to keeping it plugged in whenever an outlet is available? Really not that much. And do you really want to spend your own energy constantly thinking about it?

So, bottom line is you don't want to intentionally leave it unplugged in some misguided attempt at battery maintenance, but it's also not worth the effort to seek out plugging it in every chance you get. Keep it charged as needed and at your convenience. Probably like you did with your iPad.

Best of luck!

Unless you like to think about your MBP as much as you actually use your MBP, here's some good advice: you don't need any battery utilities, you don't need to do anything special, you don't need to worry about your battery (unless you notice something change significantly from the way it was working before).

Sure, battery life & health is dependent on many factors, but the primary issue is charge cycles... I think the MBP is warrantied for 1000 complete charge cycles (while maintaining at least 80% charge capacity). "Cycles" can be made up of partial drainages and charges, i.e. if you use 25% then charge, and then another 25%, and charge, and so on... when it adds up to a 100%, that's a cycle (it's a tiny bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic concept). So if you let the laptop sit there all day draining battery away when you're not using it, it's going to burn through cycles that much faster. (on the flip side, you don't want to leave it plugged in for months at a time without occasionally at least partially draining the battery).

That being said, how much faster will it burn through cycles compared to keeping it plugged in whenever an outlet is available? Really not that much. And do you really want to spend your own energy constantly thinking about it?

So, bottom line is you don't want to intentionally leave it unplugged in some misguided attempt at battery maintenance, but it's also not worth the effort to seek out plugging it in every chance you get. Keep it charged as needed and at your convenience. Probably like you did with your iPad.

Best of luck!

Thanks, I'll just charge it like my iPad

 

[KGB7]

Leave it plugged in if you can. No sense to keep draining the battery constantly if you don't have to.

Replacing the battery is not as simple as it was on your old white MacBook.

 

[ZapNZs]

The deeper the discharge of a lithium battery, the greater the wear. The lighter the discharge, the lesser the wear. (Of course other things cause wear too, such as heat, storage at a higher/lower voltage, etc.)

For example, if you run the battery down to near empty and then fully recharge it just one time, this could place more stress on the battery than running it down to half capacity and fully recharging it 3, 5, 10, or more times.

With AppleCare+, this could become a moot point for those who use their battery heavily since IIRC once the battery hits 80% capacity it is replaced free of charge regardless of the cycle count. In fact, it could be motivation to heavily use the battery over the first 3 years to ensure one runs it down below 80% capacity for the replacement.

With all that said, how much should one modify their usage for the sake of prolonging the battery's service life? In my opinion, not all that much.