What should I do when I get my 13" MBA? (Battery wise)

[Hoxer]

As the title say what should I do when I get my maxed out 13" MBA when talking about the battery?

Should I just start using it with the powercord inserted?

Should it charge for 12-24 hours before use?

I know (or so I've heard) that it's best for the battery to be charged all the way up and then all the way down the first time in order to calibrate the battery.

What to do?

 

[newdeal]

...

it doesn't matter the calibration is just so the time remaining display is more accurate. You can do it at any point you don't have to torture yourself by doing it when you have a brand new system you want to play with

 

[Hoxer]

If I want to calibrate the battery from the start I can use the computer, but with the power on so it can get fully charged? I can count a large number of times were I've bought a new gadget and I had to wait so LONG before I got to use it. Thats real torture.

 

[GGJstudios]

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

 

[Hoxer]

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

Thank you! This answers all my questions.

 

[kettlecorn]

1) I calibrated the battery but give it a day or two of use after calibrating for it to fully kick in.

2) I also went to Spotlight preferences and turn off all the stuff I dont want spotlight to index and search for. Basically I just turned ON apps.

3) Also installed Click2flash (for Safari) or FlashBlock for Google chrome so that I don't get floods of unnecessary flash ads that drain battery. It whitelists youtube so you should be good.

4) I also joined youtube's html5 and not flash to see if it helps the battery life.

5) I turned off auto updates for everything including apple update. I'll manually do it whenever i remember.

6) I bought Coolbook at coolbook.se (just did this today) and undervolted my CPU. It doesn't void your warranty, only works once you enter into OSX, heat goes down by 10-15 degree Celsius, AND you get better battery life.


As I'm typing this, It says 2:50 with FULL brightness and itunes open, ichat, and 6 tabs in Google chrome (1 being youtube). It's at 53%. I've never had that before today's Coolbook. In fact I never put on full brightness because it usually burns the battery around 2-3 hours after a full charge. I'm only doing it now so i can calibrate it once more but it seems to be doing real well. Totally worth the $10.

Don't have unnecessary updates or processes running in the background. The only ones i have are Bettertouchtools which allow for window snapping and resizing, spaces #, and all the stock stuff like clock, battery and wifi.

 

[GGJstudios]

1) I calibrated the battery but give it a day or two of use after calibrating for it to fully kick in.

It doesn't take any time after calibration for anything to "kick in". Calibration makes your readings more accurate and the results are immediately visible after calibrating.

2) I also went to Spotlight preferences and turn off all the stuff I dont want spotlight to index and search for. Basically I just turned ON apps.

This will make it more difficult to find your user files if you don't let Spotlight index them, and user files are more important to index than apps. Also, after the initial indexing, Spotlight won't consume much battery life at all to maintain the index as you create files. Basically, you've given up some useful functionality in exchange for nothing.

5) I turned off auto updates for everything including apple update. I'll manually do it whenever i remember.

You can certainly turn off auto updates if you choose, but you can also simply change the frequency of Software Updates to daily, weekly or monthly. Again, you're not saving much battery life by turning off Software Updates.

 

[kettlecorn]

It doesn't take any time after calibration for anything to "kick in". Calibration makes your readings more accurate and the results are immediately visible after calibrating.

This will make it more difficult to find your user files if you don't let Spotlight index them, and user files are more important to index than apps. Also, after the initial indexing, Spotlight won't consume much battery life at all to maintain the index as you create files. Basically, you've given up some useful functionality in exchange for nothing.

You can certainly turn off auto updates if you choose, but you can also simply change the frequency of Software Updates to daily, weekly or monthly. Again, you're not saving much battery life by turning off Software Updates.

Just my personal experience. I noticed battery life getting a lot more accurate with a day or two of regular use. the spotlight thing I disabled because regardless of battery life, I found it highly annoying when i would search for something, a whole slew of files nonrelated such as history and bookmarks would show up. I dont even use it ever really.

The autoupdates are a big deal if it decides to update or download when you really need battery life. Obviously this isn't going to be happening everyday but I prefer to control when to update so that it doesn't do it on its own when I really need my battery life, such as a full day on the go.

 

[GGJstudios]

The autoupdates are a big deal if it decides to update or download when you really need battery life. Obviously this isn't going to be happening everyday but I prefer to control when to update so that it doesn't do it on its own when I really need my battery life, such as a full day on the go.

When Software Update runs and finds updates, you can always elect to quit and install those updates later. It's just clicking a window selection. No battery life impact.

When your computer detects that an update is available, you can choose to download and install the update or ignore it.

 

[kettlecorn]

When Software Update runs and finds updates, you can always elect to quit and install those updates later. It's just clicking a window selection. No battery life impact.

Doesn't it still download those on its own? I know installing is a choice but I wasn't sure whether it would automatically download it.

 

[GGJstudios]

Doesn't it still download those on its own?

Not if you uncheck this box in System Preferences > Software Update:

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