14 DAY TRIAL // A somewhat alarming piece of news has recently hit the Internet, saying that Apple's MacBook Air needs 8 and a half hours in sleep mode to fully recharge its Lithium-Ion battery. Luckily, an update on the same report tells a different story. Secondary tests showed that Air actually requires less sleep time with its AC adapter plugged inside to wake up fully refreshed.
"8.5 hours to recharge MacBook Air battery?" is indeed an alarming question. Gizmodo's review must have plunged hundreds of Apple fans into agony. However, they made a second test on the Macbook Air and found that "it charges to full battery in about 3 hours," with both a MB Pro charger or its original one. Phew and double phew!
Here's what Apple says about standard lithium-ion battery charging: "Most lithium-ion batteries use a fast charge to charge your device to 80% battery capacity, then switch to trickle charging. That's about two hours of charge time to power an iPod to 80% capacity, then another two hours to fully charge it, if you are not using the iPod while charging. You can charge all lithium-ion batteries a large but finite number of times, as defined by charge cycle."
This may or may not apply to the Lithium Polymer rechargeable battery pack featured in the MacBook Air. The reason for this is of course to prevent overheating, blowing up or swelling, as often encountered with older rechargeable batteries using Nickel and Cadmium.
Oh, and here's another question answered for you (again this shows how people still stupidly relate to nickel-catdmium batteries, which are now something of the past). According to Apple again, using up say... 40% of your battery life (not its entire life cycle, but just its single-charge cycle) and then recharging it will count as a one charge cycle, not two. There is no memory effect, so if you do it by the book, the next time you choose to recharge your battery, it will again work at its 100% efficiency.