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What is a battery cycle?
- Thread starter JavaWizKid
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One full discharge and recharge of the battery or 100X 1% discharges/recharges or any combination like that. So if you use 20% of your battery and then recharge to full and do that 5 times, that's one cycle.
A battery cycle is one full discharge and recharge of the battery.
For example, going from 100% to 0%, and back to 100% again is a cycle.
For example, going from 100% to 0%, and back to 100% again is a cycle.
Lithium Ion batteries have a life expectancy of about 500 cycles. They can start dying after 300.
It's not good or bad. It's just normal. Every time you recharge the battery, you add a cycle to it. All rechargeable batteries, regardless if it's a laptop, camera, iPod, etc. have cycles.
Batteries will eventually die though. That being said, your Mac's battery cycle will usually have several hundred cycles before it dies.
There are some people out there that could argue either side. If you charge your battery to full, discharge it to 50%, charge it back up, then discharge it back to 50%, I think that's a cycle because it has been discharged 100%. Correct me if I am wrong.
They do need to keep active. Even a battery with one cycle will die over time if its not used. Just use your battery normally and forget about it.
My MBP has 75 cycles and its almost a year old. Would you say that is good? It says the condition is good.
The is fine. Like I said, don't get fixated on cycle counts, just use your laptop like a portable and recalibrate once in a while.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
If your computer is a year old and you have 75 cycles on the battery, then logically speaking you should get at least another 3 years out of that battery. Don't worry about it. Batteries can be replaced if you don't sell the computer before then!
Wow that is ridiculously high. Apple (under battery life span) says "a properly maintained battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 300 full charge and discharge cycles." So I say you are doing pretty well. Just get a new battery whenever you feel like the battery lifespan does not meet your needs anymore. This page covers battery replacements. You can buy them directly from the apple store.