30W USB‑C Power Adapter rage

[Revireco87]

Annoyed to realise that my M1 Air only comes with a 30W charger instead of the 61W that comes with the Pro.

Should I be?

And does anyone have recommendations for third-party higher wattage chargers I should purchase as I'm not paying the ludicrous Apple tax for their proprietary 61W plug.

 

[mike...]

What a strange thing to be annoyed about. Does it charge the MacBook Air properly?

 

[dboris]

I heard the air still charges fast.
Lighter, longer lifetime.

 

[Kaze9]

I've enjoyed all the anker products I've used. On the subject of batteries though, I've heard for longevity it's best to only charge to 80%? Anyone have insight on that? Normally I would be weary of not having a full charge starting the day off but the battery life lasts so incredibly long on this device that it's no longer a worry.

I just have an iPhone and an iPad Pro that both will likely need a battery replacement in the near future and I'd like to maximize my battery life at this point.

 

[Revireco87]

What a strange thing to be annoyed about. Does it charge the MacBook Air properly?

I mean if you travel constantly for work, time to charge is pretty important. Don't see the difference between this and higher-wattage phone chargers being preferable for the same reason.

 

[glsillygili]

Whats the problem? Your computer requires less power therefore comes with a lower wattage charger. Buying a 61w version would give you marginal gains in charging speed at best.

 

[Kaze9]

I mean if you travel constantly for work, time to charge is pretty important. Don't see the difference between this and higher-wattage phone chargers being preferable for the same reason.

I will say after owning this device for a few days and using it all day for work I don't feel like I'm limited because of the battery. Sometimes I'll just be at like 36% and be like, "I guess I can try and top it off for a bit" and plug it in for maybe another 40%. But I would equate it to something like owning a Tesla with 2x the range as what's on the market right now. I don't have any battery anxiety with owning this computer. 18% battery used to scare me on my old Mac, now that's like a few hours of usage.

 

[MFDoom]

I personally think a 30W charger is lame. But if I need to charge it more quickly I'll use my work laptop's 61W charger or my monitors 95W charger. I would have liked to have seen a 45W charger included but this way Apple can leverage the 30W chargers from the iPad line.

 

[AltecX]

Unless its been proven the 61 charges the Air faster than the 30w, there is no point to buy the 61W

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Why? Why include something that costs more and takes up more space when the system it's shipping with can't take advantage of it?

 

[jerryk]

Do you think a higher wattage charger will make the Air system charge faster? If so, do you have anything that backs this up? Maybe someone with a M1 Air can test this.

USB-C devices Power Delivery is smart. The charger, the device being charged, and possibly the cable all negotiate in how much power is sent when the device is connected to the charger.

Also, teardowns show the new Air uses the same battery system as the old Air which came with the same 31-watt charger. This is different from the batteries in the MBP 13" M1.

 

[DeanL]

Whats the problem? Your computer requires less power therefore comes with a lower wattage charger. Buying a 61w version would give you marginal gains in charging speed at best.

It’s not « marginal », it’s significantly faster, especially when using the laptop during charging.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

It’s not « marginal », it’s significantly faster, especially when using the laptop during charging.

Do you have any evidence that the MBA charges faster with a larger charger?

 

[antifocus]

I think the question to be asked is that since the same processor is used between Air and Pro, and M1 is very capable, how fast can Air charge while under heavy load.

 

[n00byn4t3r]

Unless its been proven the 61 charges the Air faster than the 30w, there is no point to buy the 61W

Do you have any evidence that the MBA charges faster with a larger charger?

Take a look at the bottom of an MBA, it says 20V @ 1.5A (30W) and 20.3V @ 3A (61W), so yes the MBA does indeed support 61W charging.

But to OP, just get a 61W or higher charger if that's what you want 🙂 You can get good cheap ones from Anker/Ravpower etc.

 

[giggles]

Wouldn’t fast charging ruin the battery faster tho?
With such a long battery life, charging time may be less relevant... (than, say, on an iPhone)

 

[Yebubbleman]

Annoyed to realise that my M1 Air only comes with a 30W charger instead of the 61W that comes with the Pro.

Should I be?

And does anyone have recommendations for third-party higher wattage chargers I should purchase as I'm not paying the ludicrous Apple tax for their proprietary 61W plug.

I wouldn't. The M1 in the Air is a lower wattage chip than the M1 in the Pro. That's the whole point behind Apple's vague-as-all-hell performance-per-watt graph about the M1 that they showed in the M1 keynote.

 

[Polly Mercocet]

The great thing about USB-C chargers, unlike those old terribly made MagSafe ones that fell apart all the time, is you can use any third party charger you want if you don't like what Apple includes in the box.

Personally I am blown away by the battery life in my MBA. I feel no battery anxiety. My prior MBP 2015 only had half its original battery capacity and on modern software it'd last maybe an hour and a half if I was very very lucky. With the M1 MBA I can browse in Chrome, listen to music, chat in Signal and Telegram, have Transmission running in the background, and it will still only reduce by 10% max within 3-4 straight hours of that type of use without any break.

So personally I don't see the need for a faster charger given how crazy long the battery life is. If you do want faster charging, you have the option to get a higher wattage USB-C charger from a third-party for less than Apple charges.

A lower wattage charge decreases stress on any li-ion battery, which is why "fast charging" wears out a battery faster on any device using lithium batteries - laptops, smartphones, electric cars, etc.

The MBP includes a higher wattage charger in the box because it has a physically larger battery than the MBA.

I have used a 65W charger on my MBA just purely out of convenience because I have a Lenovo one that came with my company issued Thinkpad lying around my desk already. I did not notice any subjective difference in charging times myself. But again, actually trying to run down the battery on this thing in the first place is a mission so I'm only ever "topping up" the battery and as we know, the first ~40% or so benefits most from "fast" higher watt charging while the rest of a charge sees only minimal gains in charging speed. This is again true for any lithium battery no matter what it's in whether it's a MacBook or a Tesla.

 

[Zazoh]

Y’all. Use the chargers. If not, next Macs won’t come with them.

 

[citivolus]

I used the Dell usb-c dock that came with my work laptop. It charged my MBA from 1% to 100% in about one hour! I think it provides up to 80W.

 

[Polly Mercocet]

Y’all. Use the chargers. If not, next Macs won’t come with them.

Considering the terrible quality of Apple's cables and the wide variety of superior low cost third party options for USB-C... good! I don't think anyone will miss Apple cables.

On my MBP 2015 I had to get my charger replaced every single year without fail because the wire simply began falling apart. If you look the MagSafe chargers up on Apple's site the reviews are full of people complaining of the same issue. If you go into an Apple Store the "genius" will tell you it's your fault and you need to pay £80/$80 for a new one.

Oh, actually, went to find a link to demonstrate but Apple has removed the review section for all MacBook MagSafe chargers from their site... wonder why? Maybe because they were all so glowingly positive... 🙄

Thankfully the internet never forgets! Check out the reviews Apple doesn't want you to see:

Customer Reviews: Apple 60W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter

Apple 60W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter lets you plug in and charge your 13-inch MacBook Pro.

web.archive.org

I did manage to get a couple free replacements due to AppleCare+ but once that expired I just had to suck it up and pay Apple for another overpriced charger I knew would break again in a year.

Had no choice unless I wanted to buy a whole new laptop because the MagSafe charger is an all-in-one unit. You cannot disconnect the wire from the transformer. No third party options available since it's a proprietary Apple connector unless you want a Chinese fake that will catch fire.

If it wasn't for the M1 chip and the fact these new laptops have USB-C I would not have gone near another Apple laptop again. Thankfully Apple finally dropped their proprietary crap and used the universal standard. Now I can use an actually good charger that won't fall apart and expose bare wires or leak green goo everywhere unless I cover the whole thing in tape. Revolutionary.

(I mean seriously I have some low end laptops that cost me £150 brand new and the chargers hold up without a single problem... my £1.5k MBP had a charger that kept falling apart and becoming a fire hazard within 12 months and Apple still denies the problem ever existed... the more I can avoid Apple cables the better.)

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Take a look at the bottom of an MBA, it says 20V @ 1.5A (30W) and 20.3V @ 3A (61W), so yes the MBA does indeed support 61W charging.

But to OP, just get a 61W or higher charger if that's what you want 🙂 You can get good cheap ones from Anker/Ravpower etc.

I agree that is indeed what it says. Has anyone actually done a charging test?

I charged mine machine recently with the 30W charger and have these results if anyone wants to compare with the 61W charger.

Each green bar in the battery prefs represents 15min or 0.25h and looking at those two slopes ... it seems that I'm getting around 12.5% per 0.25h or around 50% of the battery charged per hour. I understand that the charging will slow after 80%.

When I run it down to almost 0% and charge it until full it's less than 2.5h to charge (2h28m IIRC), which is consistent with 12.5%/0.25h or 50%/h for 0% to 80% (or 80% in 1.6h) then slowing the rate down to 5%/0.25h after that for the final hour.

I can't really see the huge benefit of the large charger and would prefer NOT to pay an extra £20-30 for it, when the machine is only £900 to begin with (3% extra on the machine) but maybe that's just me.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

I also thing "rage" is slightly hyperbolic with the performance of the 30W charger as I demonstrated above.

 

[Revireco87]

I also thing "rage" is slightly hyperbolic with the performance of the 30W charger as I demonstrated above.

For full transparency, 'rage' is merely a term I used to get people to engage with the post. Mild annoyance probably wouldn't have been as enticing.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

For full transparency, 'rage' is merely a term I used to get people to engage with the post. Mild annoyance probably wouldn't have been as enticing.

Hyperbolic it is.

I would respond anyway as there is some chance of a serious discussion. Someone got me to look at the bottom of my machine, which is nice. No one besides me has supplied any data, which is unfortunate.