Am I ruining my battery?

[Doctor_Tattoo]

All,
I have a question reference my battery in my 13" 2.26 MBP I have the most up to date snow leopard.

I have downloaded many battery monitoring apps, probably my favorite one is Watts. The App is probably irrelevant to my question anyway.

I have been using my MBP daily to watch movies on an external 24" Samsung monitor, plugged into the MBP with a Mini Display Port to VGA adapter. This is retty much the only way I have used my MBP is connected to this monitor for about the past 8-9 months. I generally use my MBP plugged in with it's supplied magsafe adapter, however since downloading Watts I have been using it on the battery every other day or so, but even on the battery I still use the external monitor.

According to Watts I have done 43 battery cycles and my MBP is about 15 months old and it shows my battery to be at 92% life remaining. In my opinion that is sort of low dues to Apple's claim that the battery will retain 80% at up to 1000 cycles.

Anyway, is it killing my battery using an external display on the battery?

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[Doctor_Tattoo]

Mods, It appears I posted this in the wrong forum, I meant for it to be in Apple Notebooks, can someone move this for me? Sorry about that.

Shawn

 

[bobtomay]

Done... And no.

Just because they make the claim of 1000 cycles doesn't mean you should expect the battery to last the "29 years" at your current rate of cycles before it dies.

Someone that is cycling that battery every day can expect "up to" about 2 yrs and 9 months before reaching 80%. If yours continues at the same rate, you're looking at 3 years and 2 months.

I really wish folks would quit obsessing over battery life on their computers.

How about this:

How can I best use my car to extend the battery life? That's just a ridiculous question. And no more so with a computer. You use your car as you want or need to. Use your computer as you want or need to. Some of those 96 month auto batteries are only going to last 24 months - just had one die on me this week at 26 months old. Some of them are going to last 120 months or longer.

Ain't no different with the battery in a mouse, a keyboard, a phone, a music player or any other thing you can name that uses rechargeable batteries.

My advice, uninstall all those battery life apps from your machines; use your computer, car, etc. the way "you" want to use it. On your computer, maybe follow Apple's recommendation to calibrate the battery once a month, be happy and:

Fuggedaboutit!!!!

 

[pigoo3]

To add...plugging an external monitor into your Macbook Pro doesn't really have anything to do with battery life. I mean there may be some sort of minuscule amount of extra energy used because of using the video out port...but the external monitor has it's own power source (plugged into the wall)...so it's not really drawing any power from your Macbook Pro.

My question...What don't you just plug your Macbook Pro into the wall when watching movies with this external monitor?...there really is no reason to run off the battery when you have electricity to plug into nearby.

- Nick

 

[6string]

battery shmattery

 

[EndlessMac]

I really wish folks would quit obsessing over battery life on their computers.

Yes, agreed. There are so many electronics that uses batteries but people seem to be obsessed with their laptop batteries. This is probably because there are a number of battery monitoring tools. I think those tools just end up making people OCD about the situation.

Just like your car example, imagine if everyone cared about their battery life in all their electronics. No one would use their cell phones often, drive their cars often, etc for fear of shorten battery lives.

As bobtomay implied, don't let the device own you. You own the device so use it the way you want it. If you end up needing a new battery sooner than expected then so be it but at least you got to use your laptop the way you want. I personally think that's better than having a long battery life. In other words being immortal is kind of worthless if you have a miserable life.