I'm paranoid about battery cycles

Some people might not agree with me on this one but here goes:

I have a late 2008 MB Uni and still get almost 4 hours of usage and have a cycle count of 1037.

I also have a new late 2011 MBP that I purchased last Monday and I already have 10 cycle count.

Am I worried? Not really. Use your MBP until 50% then charge it. The next day use it for another 50% and charge it again. That will give you 1 full cycle count (according to apple - on their battery care site).

Don't worry to much about cycle counts. Start worrying when the battery starts losing it's charge. Once you can't get more than 3 hours on your MBP on a full charge ( depending on what apps you're using ) then it's time to send the battery for a warranty replacement ( if under 1 year or 3 years if you have apple care )

Just make sure you keep your battery charged once it hits 50% or less. Keeping it plugged in for the whole day when the battery is fully charged is not really that good for the battery.

I agree with Shootist007.

I have same problem as you, paranoid with battery cycle. But now, the paranoid's gone. I learned a lot from the users in this forum that MacBook pro's battery have built-in chip that will determine whether your battery is full or not and stop the battery from charging and then using AC power instead. You don't have to worry to overcharge, becaause it wont. The battery is turned off and then it uses AC power, as i said before.

If you paranoid enough to know how many cycle-count are there, you can use my tricky solution. Always plug in your mac to AC power because it will use external power, so the battery's not charged and this is not counted as cycle.

http://www.apple.com/uk/support/macbookpro/batteries_power/

Always use it plugged in when you are near AC power and it is easy lto connect to that AC power. Use it on battery only Only when you do not have the option to use it on AC power and or when it is not convenient to connect to the AC power.

If you normally use the computer connected to AC you should use it on battery only once or twice a week to exercise the battery.

Stop disconnecting it from the AC power when it reaches 100% charge when AC is available.

the only advice i can give you is to use your computer the way you intended to when you bought it. if you have ac power available then i say use it, if not, it is a laptop and it's meant to be used on battery power. i'm on my first mac to having bough mine last june. mine has somethink like 57 cycles on the battery. i travel a lot and i use my computer on the plane, and it still has 98% battery. i think i have heard that with a new mbp that your battery capacity will fluctuate some. you will get cycles on your battery when all the cumulative usage gets to 100% (or 1 full cycle) so if you use it down to 85% everyday then after 6 days you will get 1 cycle, at least i think this is how it works. anyways enjoy your new computer, and if you have serious concerns with it take it into the apple store and have them look at it.