Where are you getting the cycle count?

I have an M1 Air, I got it new and use it heavily. I see "battery health" is "normal" and "max capacity" is 90%, but I don't see a count of charge cycles.

You can check the cycle count using the System Information app in the power section. Option-click on the Apple logo is a convenient shortcut to open System Information.

There is also the third-party Coconut Battery app that gives you other nice statistics and keeps track of battery health if you open it occasionally.

https://coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

That is remarkably low, isn't it? I mean, saying this as an (ex) ThinkPad user :P. Did you take any special care with it?

"Special care" on OS X is to use Al Dente.app, which limits the charge at 80% so as to not damage the battery.

https://apphousekitchen.com/

I can't recommend Al Dente enough. Apparently I'm only at 134 cycles with 92% capacity*. M1 max is 26 months old. I have used a work computer for large portions of time obviously.

* TBH the capacity seems a bit low for my cycle count. Possible I've let it sit around 30% for too long at points. Such is the scourge of living in San Diego with the highest kWH rates in the country and only trying to charge at night or on weekends. I cry inside when I see people quoting 12c/kWh. Try 50c-1.20 depending on time of day/year.

Isn’t that option built into MacOS now? Since Ventura I think.

It has a supposedly intelligent thing which works about the same as iOS, meaning not well and not reliably.

iOS has gained a hard limit toggle, but macOS has yet to. Aldente does that job.

The built-in option is a step in the right direction, but doesn't provide any way for a user to specify that the battery doesn't need to be charged to 100% if the OS thinks it needs to be. In my experience, it usually ends up charging the battery 100% every night, then letting it discharge to 80% during the day.

I’ve had it never charge, and sit reliably at 80% for weeks. Then when I unplugged it the schedule was ruined and it reverted to charging at night. Overcomplicated for no reason lol

Yes: the MacBook eventually learns to stop charging and keep at 80%. (it took a month for mine)

You can override it to fully charge.

I have the original M1 air that I got the day it released in 2020. In a typical week, I will let my battery discharge to less than 10% twice and recharge it to 100%. I've logged 458 cycles and lost 11% of my capacity. Not too bad.

How old was the Thinkpad? I used to expect a laptop battery to be borderline useless after 4 years or so, but my 2016 MBP is coming up on 8, and the battery is doing surprisingly okay. It reports 70% capacity, and that feels about right.

I can't say exactly, but it degraded remarkably quickly. Maybe someone else can chime in with a different experience, but I doubt it would be anywhere near as good as what I read from MacBook users, especially M-series.

I got the ThinkPad brand new, and it was a relatively recent model.

My Thinkpad 470s battery is close to its death (1h30 autonomy editing text, doing CAD or websurfing), after 5 years of heavy use.

I’m pretty sure they’re rated for 1000 cycles. Idk if that’s good or bad. Or what’s expected to happen when it’s beyond that.

1000 cycles is when it’s expected to drop to ~80% of original capacity. Still plenty of use left after that.

You can check the rated cycle counts for most Macbooks on the following Apple Support page:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102888

Most recent Macbooks should last for 1000 full cycles. Though I'm pretty sure you can brick your battery quickly by keeping it at 100% charge all the time or if you use it in a very hot environment.