Aftermarket power adapter from eBay any good?

It may or may not fry your MacBook, it's really hard to say.

On one hand, it could be made in the same factory as the Apple part, just on a "ghost shift" type of deal. It could also be a pretty close copycat part.

Alternatively, it could just have the same casing design, but be total crap on the inside.

For me, it's not worth the risk for a >$1000 computer.

pflau said:

Hi. Has anyone tried using one of those $18 60W MegSafe aftermarket power adapter from eBay? They look just like the Apple power adapter minus the Apple logo. They are so cheap I wonder if there is any chance they might fry my MacBook. Thanks!

Click to expand...

I cannot speak about the magsafe ones, but I have bought an aftermarket one back when my wife used a G4 iBook and it worked fine until my daughter snapped a piece of something off inside of it.

I've had two, both magsafe type. The first one worked great for about a month until it was struck by lightning (along with a lot of electronics that were behind apc backups). It literally blew apart inside but the macbook was unharmed. I replaced it with a apple one to the tune of $85 plus tax. The cheap ones are not the exact dimensions as the apple chargers. The slide in plug and chords will not interchange. I bought another for a backup macbook that I've since sold and it seemed to work fine.

I have two and they are fine.

I have two of the 85W no-name power supplies.

My daughter and I both have 15" Macbook Pros, and my wife has a 13" Macbook Pro. I take mine back and forth to the office, so I left one of the no-brand adapters there. I have the other one plugged in behind the television cabinet. We have a 2TB hard drive there and we all plug our laptops in there to charge and to allow Time Machine to back things up.

They are bigger than the current crop of 85W adapters, so they're not too good for portability. For a fixed placement though, they are great. 🙂

One caviat, one of them had a stuck pogo pin in the magsafe plug when I got it. I used a plastic toothpick to exercise the pins and the stuck one came loose and started working right. I'd bet real money that an apple adapter doesn't leave the factory with stuck pogo pins.

I've been using one of these ebay adapters for about a year with no problems. What most people don't know is the makers of these things actually buy the magsafe end (magnet) directly from Apple to avoid patent violations. There's nothing Apple can do about it either as it's all legit. Of course everything else is made elsewhere.

I bought one to use at my desk at home so I could just keep the original adapter in my briefcase for the road. No more packing up adapters - I just unplug and go.

I agree with the above poster. I don't know about the power adapter myself, but I am using a battery from an ebay company and it works just like the apple battery. Like he said, it is basically the same thing inside (might look different cosmetically) because it is just the technology without the branding, so its cheaper. You should be fine going with the power adapter from ebay