MacBook Air: Thoughts?

I just got my hands on a macbook air, so everything feels pretty new to me. I have a couple of questions:

Is it better to just close the lid to put it in sleep mode (or whatever you call it, it just feels like it's resting), or should I shut it down completely?

(For instance, I was told it’s not a great idea to just put an HP laptop into sleep mode for a few hours; they said it's better to power it all the way off.)

Thanks in advance. 🙂

Also, sorry if this is the wrong subforum. I was bouncing around everywhere trying to find the right spot for this, so apologies if I'm out of line here.🙂

Look, I’m no expert here, but I get the feeling you just don't care one bit about any of this...
And honestly, I bet you feel the exact same way when you're using your HP, too...

I guess Apple's advice is basically just to close it out. That’s what I do with mine (I have a Pro) and everything works perfectly! It’s designed so you don't really have to stress about it—just open it or close it. Maybe if you never shut it down, just doing a full restart once a month would be enough.