I have an itch to scratch about batteries.

People have been saying they use their Mac notebooks (iBook, PowerBook, MacBooks, etc) without batteries. Some also recommend to use them without batteries if it's a prolonged use, ie. at work, at home, connected for more than 2-3 hours to the mains, to save battery life. Some even plug their notebooks every time there is a power outlet all to save the almighty cycle count.

I swear, there are some crazy people obsessed with minimizing the cycle count and ensuring their battery stays on 100%. (it's a frickin' consumable! Do you always use economy setting on your printer to print your stuff?) They say they do this because Apple's battery is expensive.

Apple's guidance is to charge the battery until full and unplug the charger when it reaches 100%. After all, it's a notebook, not a desktop. The whole idea is to use the battery.

I've seen one MacBook Pro got burnt (dead, black, logic board) by unstable electricity because Apple told her to send her bad battery back (battery exchange program, last year) and wait until replacement gets shipped. Well, her new battery came but she had to buy a brand new MacBook Pro because Apple won't cover the cost of the burnt logic board.

I need to get these perceptions straightened out.

Is it alright to use a Mac notebook plugged in in a prolonged period (3+ hours) regularly (as in every day)?
Would you use a Mac notebook without its battery in the same situation?
In both situations, does it make a difference when there is a power surge (as in will having a battery in place save your logic board)?

I was always of the opinion that too many charge cycles was bad for your battery, thu doing what Apple suggests and unplugging it as soon as it is 100% would be bad. I run my MacBook all day on the power and have never had a problem, it still has more battery capacity than original with over 100 charge cycles.

That said my old Acer laptop did have problems. I used to run it on the power all the time but it appears it was not smart enough to realise that and shut down use of the battery, thus the battery was destroyed quite quickly. The MacBook seems to be smart enough to realise though when you are running on power and when you want to run on battery and to keep these two things seperate.

If you have a power surge then whether the battery is in or not doesn't matter. Either the PSU/charge board and/or the logicboard will probably be cactus if the surge is big enough to cause damage.

Stewie

All Apple laptops that are from about 2004-2005 onwards have very good battery controllers, and there is absolutely no problem with leaving them plugged in - the controller effectively disconnects that battery at 100% anyway, so it is completely pointless to take it out.

Many years ago, this was definitely not the case - overcharging batteries would decrease their life - and I think people that disconnect their batteries are going on "best practice" as it existed 10 years ago.

BTW I had a MB battery that got replaced (for free), it's health got down to about 80%. The replacement has had 86 cycles, and is on 100% health. I leave it plugged in for extended periods of time without a second thought.

somewhere on the apple support pages states that processing power is 'reduced' in the macbooks if battery is removed, and running of the power pack!

I've never done anything special with my batteries - I just use the computer however I want and leave it at that. If the battery dies, it dies and I buy a new one.

talking about batteries - where is the cheapest place to buy one for a macbook 13"?

My battery is very dead, it has 374 cycles on it but has been dead since 280 odd (think it was a faulty battery but never got a chance to use the warranty)

I used to be one of those poeple - I'd go to any length not to use my battery so it stayed in pristine condition.

Now I have a Macbook Air, and I love using it while I'm out and about - even down to 5 or 10% (gasp!). Now I'm very cavalier about it - I'll use that sucker whenever it's convenient, and as Thunderstruck said, treat it like a consumable. I'm sure the Apple store will be able to swap a new one in while I wait, some time down the road.

+1
That's how I use my mbp.

Have you tried fastmac.com? They make batteries for MacBooks. Ask them if they have a local disty. They're on twitter also btw, @fastmac

@chocho Yeah, I read that too. Forgot the link to the KB article. I've never tried it myself though.

Had me worried for a sec. I am using my battery however i like it. its a relieve to hear that all is good now.

What part didn't you try? The KB article is titled:And explains why:Thunderstruck. I don't think you can reasonably argue (even a tiny bit) that your friends Mac burned because it was running without a battery. I concede that it happened while it was plugged into the mains but having a rechargeable battery means it's going to have to be plugged in at some stage anyway. Sadly the event that was able to cook her Mac occurred while it was plugged into the mains. Whatever happened with the mains voltage during that event must have been quite dramatic but living in the tropics and also a developing country means it is going to be subject to both extreme voltage surges (lightning) and regularly quite variable voltage (overtaxed and inadequate supply). In these conditions, anyone with expensive, sensitive electronic equipment should have a high quality surge protector and a UPS to filter out the extreme variation in the electricity supply.