Questions about MacBook Air battery

[aaron5566]

I just got my first Mac, a MacBook Air and everything is just great but my brother told me to leave my Mac plugged in at 100% and never unplug unless I want to take it out. Is this bad? I was running my Mac purely on battery for the past week and charging it when it drops to about 5%? So now I dunno what to do now. Should I keep my Mac plugged in or run it down and charge it up? I also tend to use my Mac on my bed, is this bad? I see my CPU average temp go to about 50 degrees but when I start playing HD videos and flash games it goes to about 80 and the fans are not kicking in with just 2002 RPM for few minutes. Oh and I always wondered why does this happen ,for some reason the CPU temp just spikes to about 85 degrees and remain till the fans kick in or I lift it away from the bed for a few minutes. Anyone can explain this? Should I start using my Mac on a hard surface? Does heat ruin the battery?

 

[jj97101]

Use it however you'd like to, it won't matter. However don't go to the extremes, don't drain it all the time and don't leave it plugged in all the time (so yes don't follow your brothers advice). A rough guide on how to keep your battery at its best is to use it normally and then every few weeks drain it to 0% and then fully charge it.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Here's the best advice: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html