Battery management of a Macbook

Posted by darthvader on Super User See other posts from Super User or by darthvader
Published on 2011-09-24T23:25:07Z Indexed on 2012/12/01 23:08 UTC
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macbook

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battery

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macbook-pro

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battery-life

I bought a Macbook Pro last week. I mostly use (and plan to use) it like a desktop with an external monitor. I use the system at least 15 hours a day. Now using the coconut battery application, I figured out that the capacity has the current capacity has reduced to 98% of the design capacity. I was wondering what is the best way to manage battery.

Should it be always either charging or discharging
Should it be plugged in all time.
I barely get 2 hours and 30 minutes on battery. Is that normal? I run XCode, VMWare Fusion (for Visual Studio), Mail app, Chrome (5-10 tabs) and Itunes (mp3). The brightness is 60% on battery. I already did the calibration.

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