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New User Help! Battery question

W

Warnie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 3, 2013
8
0
Hi guys,

serious rookie apple user alert! I'm jumping ship from windows laptop to Macbook Air and my MBA is arriving tomorrow and I have no idea what to do, part of the fun! I have never used an apple.

Anyway I was just wondering if the battery was good to go when it arrives or if I had to charge the macbook air for a certain amount of time before using to make sure I get the most from the machine? Only reason I ask is that in the past I've had to do that with mobiles.

Excited!!

Thanks

Warnie.
 
The battery will not be fully charged when you get it. It could be 80% or 50%. I personally top it off after I get it :)

Congrats on your new baby
 
Last edited:
It has a charge so you can turn it on right away and set it up, but I'd plug it in when you first open it up from its fancy packaging and let it fully charge while you play around with it. The Air doesn't take very long to charge either.
 
maflynn said:
The batter will not be fully charged when you get it. It could be 80% or 50%. I personally top it off after I get it :)

Congrats on your new baby
Click to expand...

thanks very much, I am getting quite excited now, driving people in work up the wall!

----------
\-V-/ said:
It has a charge so you can turn it on right away and set it up, but I'd plug it in when you first open it up from its fancy packaging and let it fully charge while you play around with it. The Air doesn't take very long to charge either.
Click to expand...

thank you very much, I just didn't want to harm it by not charging overnight if you know what I mean!!
 
You should be excited. The Air is a VERY nice little computer. And the new ones are stupidly fast (according to the recent benchmarks on the flash storage).
 
I went for an upgrade too 13"/8gb/256/i7 so that should do for a while!!!
 
My last Air came w/ about 90% battery.

You don't have to do ANYTHING. You can use it, charge it, use it while charging it, let it sit while charging or let it sit w/o charging it.:p

Macbook Airs come w/ lithium ion batteries. There's lots of great things about lithium ion batteries. They don't have a 'memory'. They can be charged/discharged at any time w/ any amount of battery life left. You can charge it to full or to half or to 3/4 and take it off the charger without any ill effects. The ONLY thing that's recommended for lithium ion batteries is to not let them discharge fully if you can help it. If it does happen to discharge fully, no worries, it's likely not to harm it anyway. Best of all, lithium ion batteries are NOT hazardous to the 'environment'. You can actually, and legally, dispose of them in regular household trash. No special requirements. Although I suggest recycling them anyways.
 
Got my new MBA today and the battery seemed full or close to full like 11:50 and it was at like 98% or around there.

Decided to just start using it got it at around 1PM its now 10PM and I still have 6 hours battery left.

The battery % sometimes doesn't match up with the battery logo so I guess Ill use it until 0% and then charge it back fully to calibrate it.

Either way, I dont think it matters much if you charge it or not at first.
 
Warnie said:
thank you very much, I just didn't want to harm it by not charging overnight if you know what I mean!!
Click to expand...
You can't harm the battery by charging it overnight. Once the battery is fully charged, it stops charging automatically. It cannot overcharge.
irDigital0l said:
The battery % sometimes doesn't match up with the battery logo so I guess Ill use it until 0% and then charge it back fully to calibrate it.
Click to expand...
Simply draining and recharging a battery is not calibration. The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

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.
 
GGJstudios said:
You can't harm the battery by charging it overnight. Once the battery is fully charged, it stops charging automatically. It cannot overcharge.

Simply draining and recharging a battery is not calibration. The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

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.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks I'll take a look at it.

So I guess I should just use it and charge it when I need to. Even then I doubt anything would drastically decrease/increase the life of your battery.

Now I understand why the indicator went up and down many times. My old laptop/windows desktop never had these.

Just use it normally and charge it when you need sounds like the general idea.
 
@GGJstudios thanks for that, will read the link later.

My MBA is now out for delivery!!

Thanks to everyone who has replied to this rookie question, very much appreciated.
 
Bottom line - use the computer and enjoy it. Don't obsess about the battery :)
 
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