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yeah try to charge your battery only when it is completly dead... or it will shorten its life... ALOT.
 
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anarkhy 17

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the newer porta macs have a newer battery technology that should improve the life of your battery.... it shouldn't be a problem. :)
 
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Cloudane

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Graphite said:
yeah try to charge your battery only when it is completly dead... or it will shorten its life... ALOT.

Hmm??

I heard the exact opposite, that flattening your battery often would shorten its life dramatically as it's a complete cycle, whilst just topping it up often would only be fractions of a cycle and make it last longer. In particular, I keep mine plugged in most of the time (it also has that intelligent feature that doesn't charge it if it's above 95% to make it last even longer)

Any official word on this?
 
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iSheep

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As I posted on the page before, Apple say the following:
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her iBook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

There - the official word :)
 
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Graphite said:
yeah try to charge your battery only when it is completly dead... or it will shorten its life... ALOT.

NO!

Or, at least, not exactly.

I've killed a cell phone battery doing this.

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.)
Short battery life in a laptop is mainly caused by heat rather than charge/discharge patterns.
Although memory-free, apply a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges to calibrate batteries with fuel gauge. Running down the battery in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate. The battery life will not be affected.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her iBook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month. Need a reminder? Add an event to your desktop’s iCal.
 
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Cloudane

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Thanks iSheep. Yet another example of moi not looking in the obvious places because I don't actually expect things to be *there* thanks to Microsoft :p

So... the impression I get.... is that flattening your battery all the time is a *bad* thing if you have a chance to use a power adapter because you're wasting cycles. But keeping it topped up all the time is bad, too. A compromise from Apple: cycling it once a month to *cough* "keep the electrons going" (thanks Apple, for keeping it in English!) or running off battery regularly would definitely help. Cool :)

I use mine as a main computer at home fairly often, sometimes unplug and roam into another room, use it plugged in at work but often roam unplugged into a meeting etc. So I guess my usage at least is reasonable, though could do with flattening it once in a while.
 

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