Battery cycle count, what is healthy?

Basically, lithium-based batteries like the one in your computer have a useful life of 400-500 charge cycles. The "up to 300" is based on Apple's spec that a properly maintained notebook battery should maintain 80% health for 300 cycles.

As Kappy stated, your battery is in great shape (note that Kappy is assuming you have a 15" MBP, which is probably the case; if you have a 17" MBP your health is 86%, which is not great, but is still good and within spec). My only recommendation would be to calibrate your battery every month or so:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

(Normally, calibrating every two months is appropriate, but you do not seem to use your battery that much - 7 cycles in 5 months - so monthly calibration is better for you. My personal recommendation is 1-2 cycles per week.)

According to the information in System Profiler your battery is in nearly perfect condition. Your full charge capacity is 5441 mAh. The full charge capacity of a new battery averages around 5500 mAh, so your battery is at 99%. What "charging" problems are you having?

Since production has long since caught up with demand, it is common for a newly purchased MBP to be a few months past its production date.

In order for battery capacity to be maximized and be reported accurately, you have to maintain and calibrate your battery as advised by Apple:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

I have a Macbook which is about 2 1/2 years old.
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4886
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4892
Health Information:
Cycle count: 506
Condition: Good

Should I be concerned about the cycle count of 506?

I purchased a MacBook Pro towards the end of summer 2006 and without using my AC adapter I'm only getting about 20 minutes if lucky of battery life. I purchased the AppleCare Plan and I was curious if anyone thought that Apple would cover it? Here's my battery information right now (it just died & I just had to put it back on the charger so if the numbers look a little funny that'd be why I guess)

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 968
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 334
Amperage (mA): 1811
Voltage (mV): 12456
Cycle Count: 107

...anything look out of wack?

Hmm , my MBP will be 2 years old in December and my battery looks like this:
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 3309
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 3436
Health Information:
Cycle count: 88
Condition: Check battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12388
Since mine is nearly 24 months old, do I need to get a new battery soon as well. Not sure how you read this as healthy or not. Thanks for all your help!
Julie

My battery is about 11 months old:

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2943
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 2943
Health Information:
Cycle count: 57
Condition: Check battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 148
Voltage (mV): 12632

Hmm well that stinks. I guess I'll have to give apple a call tomorrow and find out if they'll cover a new battery, I'd think that they would. I work for Best Buy and in our protection plans we cover battery replacements but then again, our plans cover much more than theirs does. Not saying I don't appreciate their applecare plan because it's been a life saver for me having already replaced a hard drive AND an optical drive. If they don't cover it I'm debating on whether to buy a new battery or just keep the computer for at home, sell my HP desktop and then possibly buy a cheap laptop to use for school...

Concerned? No. Pleased? Yes! Your battery is in great shape for such a relatively high cycle count. However, do be aware that battery performance can decline fairly fast, so now's the time to start putting some $ aside for a new battery (it's likely that you'll need one soon).

I'm afraid that your battery is about used up, as it has less than 20% of its full charge capacity left. This is not unusual for an MBP battery over two years old, but not for one with only 107 cycles. It is unlikely that AppleCare will give you a new battery, but it's worth a try if you can show that some manufacturing defect was the cause of your battery's demise after only 107 cycles. As a comparison, my two batteries are about the same age as yours, have 221 and 229 cycles and both have over 90% of their original full charge capacities.

I thought my battery condition is not good and searching the forum to find out. Looks like your battery is not in good shape. My 11 month old MBP bettery information:

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4779
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4881
Health Information:
Cycle count: 150
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -66
Voltage (mV): 12448

I'm not sure if mine is good shape or not. Even with full charged battery, battery indicator say only 2hr remains.

Message was edited by: greenolivetree

Hello:

For a few (3?) months my charging LED has been blinking orange/green back and forth sometimes while my screen shows "Calculating", "Not Charging", or "Charged". I have not noticed any serious performance problem. Finally I just decided to check the 2.25-year-old battery to see if there's anything I should be concerned with. What I found that worries me most is:

"Fully Charged: No"
"Condition: Check Battery"

My MBP is plugged in most of the time. Do you see anything of concern? Any tips will be much appreciated.

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: SMP-ASMB012-3476-7c
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: ASMB012
Pack Lot Code: 0001
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0102
Hardware Revision: 0400
Cell Revision: 0100
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4106
Fully charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4106
Health Information:
Cycle count: 170
Condition: Check battery
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 95
Voltage (mV): 12471

I bought macbook pro 3 months ago but the system profiler says its 7 months old? and my cycle count is 47 and my max capacity is 5284 which is about 93 percent. is that normal? my battery is not stable sometimes its at 96 percent and then down to 93 but most of the time is around 93 or 94.

Purchased (through my college): August 2006

The battery used to run just fine, but now I'm lucky if I can run it for 20 minutes without the power adapter. Here are the stats in the System Profiler:

*Battery Information:*

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 1438
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 1277
Amperage (mA): 268
Voltage (mV): 12605
Cycle Count: 208

The System Profiler makes it seem as though the battery capacity looks fine (to me, anyway). But when I run other programs like CoconutBattery, it says I have 20-40% of my battery capacity, depending on when I open the program.

Is it time for a new battery?

Hi, I read your comments on this forum and I would like to get your advice.
I am about to buy a new battery for my mac because the battery now has a level of health of 7%, but the odd thing is some days it will indicate a health of 84% then the next day 23% for a few days and now it has come down to 7%.
Each time the battery life corresponds to the level of health (charging capacity and duration of use) meaning that some days it lasts long and some days it only lasts 20 mins.

I have had this macbook pro for 13 months only, just ran out of warranty by one month which is frustrating. The cycle count on it is 392, which is high but wouldn't think the capacity would decrease so much and so suddenly (a couple of weeks back it was working perfectly fine).

I have tried every manipulation (calibrating - actually I think this may have caused a problem as it was not long before it began- , reinitialisation of SMC,PRAM, long press of start button after taking out battery and charger, restart in T-mode).

DO you think I should buy a new battery?

Thanks a lot for your help

Yass09