MacBook Air Battery Technology

[Gauss-Jacobi]

I had been wondering if the new Airs use the same battery technology as the newer MBPs, namely the 1000 charge cycle rating. I assumed not since apple didn't explicitly talk about how amazing the new Air's battery was. Anyway, I finally found this buried in Apple's battery page (http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html):

The built-in battery of the MacBook Air is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at up to 750 full charge and discharge cycles.

The built-in battery in the new 13-, 15-, and 17-inch MacBook Pro is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles.

So I guess it's a mixed bag...not quite up to the level of the MBPs, but certainly better than the old batteries!

 

[elwood58]

And the old batteries were pretty good as far as that goes. A charge every other day still gets you 5 years, and I have never kept a laptop for that long.

 

[CaoCao]

I had been wondering if the new Airs use the same battery technology as the newer MBPs, namely the 1000 charge cycle rating. I assumed not since apple didn't explicitly talk about how amazing the new Air's battery was. Anyway, I finally found this buried in Apple's battery page (http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html):



So I guess it's a mixed bag...not quite up to the level of the MBPs, but certainly better than the old batteries!

assuming you use it 8 hours a day everyday it will still last you over 2.5 years

 

[elwood58]

assuming you use it 8 hours a day everyday it will still last you over 2.5 years

And that assumes you use it on battery 100% of the time. Also remember, the rating says it will still have 80% of it's charge capacity at that cycle count, which still leaves you with a 4 hour battery on the 11" and 5.6 hours on the 13".