So I just got my macbook, plugged it in and charged it up. After it fully charged I removed the cord and took the computer to the other room. I've plugged it back in and now it does not appear to charge past 97% - though the green light on the charger indicates that it's done charging. After reading online it looks like the battery just needs calibration (since it is just a giant box full of chemicals, it tends not to be that accurate). Now my question is this: I've owned several laptops before and they all told me to do something different for battery charging/discharging. Should I plug in the laptop whenever possible and keep it that way? Should I wait until it's full and then discharge it all the way each time? What is the proper battery etiquette for macs?

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[zok@zoklet ~]$ whereis Zok
Zok: /derzok/at/gmail/dot/com http://bbs.zoklet.net/ http://itcrawledupmy.com/ http://therevoltpress.org

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2011440

And you want my help with a Mac

......stupid?

When I had my iBook, I waited until it was nearly dead (<5%) and then plugged it in, and it lasted me a long while.

I'm not sure if it's anything different with the new macs.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

I run the battery out and then plug it back in again. My mac has been used to death but my batt is still going strong

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If you are really worried about your battery you can use it without the battery in it when you can, just leave it plugged in. To some degree this does defy the point of it being a laptop, yes. But it can help keep your battery in good health when you don't have to have it running off the battery.

Otherwise, I usually run it down a fair bit before plugging it back in.

just note however, if you do run it without the battery, your CPU speed will be lowered, you will probably not notice this change at all if you don't do anything extensive on it, but will if you do video editing, or use cpu demanding software (games, fcp, parallels, etc.)

I really don't get why apple did this, if someone would care to enlighten me i would greatly appreciate it. Logically there is no way that the AC input cant provide enough juice...

You're an idiot! people make parodies of mac advertisements every other day. I think their products are somewhat overpriced and not always of the greatest quality.

On that note, when they work, they are awesome. On the negative; they screw people over. I had to pay for my 2.0 upgrade and iphone users got it for free. It's now sold as an addition and called a package, not pre-installed as I think it should. I only bought mine less than a month ago and already had power down and reset to fix a minor problem, lost everything on my device. Positive, I do favor their OS better than any other I have used.

I just sold my macbook, but still have my ipod touch. Would of got an iphone, but there is no service in the dead state of Montana with the only provider (AT&T) the phone uses. So I do have an neutral opinion and based on what I read of Zok's thread, he didn't bash or ridicule apple in anyway. He made a reasonable statement about their advertisments and not "mac sucks my left nutsack and their adverts should be destroyed". Take what you want from this and yeah, kindly toss off!

stay bad
~stormy

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"if you double dip while using toys, I will kick you out of the bed"

What is Zok doing with a Mac???

Computer batteries generally won't charge from about 95% up. That's standard, with all batteries, to prevent the battery from constantly having to top itself up, as they run out slowly through self-discharge. If you need to charge it let it run down to 93-94% and then plug it in.

My battery seems to always be on 99% full.