New Air at 100% out of the box?

[AXs]

Hey guys, I just got my new Macbook Air today. The guy at the shop installed all the essential softwares for me, which took him about 30 minutes while I was waiting at the coffee shop nearby.

But basically, it is at 100% now, but dropped charge really fast... regular browsing is dropping 1 percent every couple of minutes. I charged it (first charge) at 96% and it was green within 10 minutes... and is now at 100%.


So do I have to drain it on first usage, or do I have to leave it at 100% plugged in for 8 hours?

Thanks for any support. You guys are awesome.

 

[maflynn]

Use it and and enjoy it. If the battery is showing near 100%, then have fun with it.

My advice don't get obsessed with the battery, just use it

 

[AXs]

sweet. thanks. I hope after the first cycle, the battery won't drain as fast.

Thanks again.

 

[GGJstudios]

So do I have to drain it on first usage, or do I have to leave it at 100% plugged in for 8 hours?

Just use it. Run on battery whenever you need to and plug it in whenever you can. You can plug or unplug any time you need to, regardless of the charged percentage, and you never need to completely drain your battery. Just make sure you don't run on AC power exclusively, as your battery needs to be used regularly to stay healthy.

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

​

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[AXs]

thanks man. appreciate it.

I'm going to enjoy my laptop without worrying about battery any further. After all, I bought an Air to be portable.

If I have to pay 100bucks in a year to get it replaced, so be it. Thanks for the link.

See you in another life, charger. /Desmond

 

[jdechko]

Also don't forget that there are quite a few processes working in the background on a new computer. Spotlight, for instance, has to index your entire drive, which can take a while when you first dump all of your data on the machine.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Also don't forget that there are quite a few processes working in the background on a new computer. Spotlight, for instance, has to index your entire drive, which can take a while when you first dump all of your data on the machine.

Ditto this, the indexing is a huge process that chews up power for the first few hours. It'll settle down.

 

[AXs]

yea I was worried at first... but I've been on my laptop since I posted this 5 and a half hours ago, including about 1 hour of watching HD videos on youtube in HD on my 40" Sony Internet TV and I'm STILL at 50%!!!

This is unbelievable. It is one thing to hear about it. To read about it. But to see it for yourself is just unreal.

Total sleeptime must have been 10 minutes tops.

Trying to figure it all out but I guess being new to a mac, it is going take time.

I spent 45 minutes trying to log in to my Air from my media box which is connected to my 40" TV so that I dont have to drain battery on an external monitor (thought I'm not sure if streaming HD videos will use any less battery), and after I figured out I had to share with SMB so that it can detect, which it did, It gives me "login fail" after initially being able to log in to my mac.

But I just can't login to my folders where the files are saved. So for now I guess I will continue to use my pc laptop to stream files (I hate going through external storage).

Will surely figure it out soon though. SOON.

 

[GGJstudios]

Trying to figure it all out but I guess being new to a mac, it is going take time.

This may be useful:

Helpful Information for Any Mac User​

 

[irDigital0l]

Mines was like 98%...I just used it until it almost ran out of battery. I think I used for over like 12 hours.

 

[jdechko]

thought I'm not sure if streaming HD videos will use any less battery

In my experience, how the videos are encoded has a lot to do with it as well. A 1080p h.264/mp4 video is going to use a lot less battery than any flv (flash) video, HD or not.

Anecdotally, about 2 hours of local playback for mp4 HD only uses ~15%. I use an app called Miro to download YouTube videos for local playback.

If you are streaming YouTube videos, make sure you download the YouTube5 safari extension. It's not hyperbole to say that flash is a battery killer on Mac.