96W vs 140W Power Adapter

[BrianWsf]

We are planning to have both a 14 and a 16 inch MBP in our household. Give that we move the laptops around and always want access to power, should we jus t be using the 140W adapter? Will the 16W not charge as efficiently with the 96W? I understood if you used a lower watt adapter on previous models, it may not charge and do more damage to the battery. I could be mistaken here though. I think I should at least pay the extra $20 on the 14 inch MBP for the 96W adapter, but wan too know know if it's ok to use for the 16 inch. Thanks!

 

[Daniel L]

It's fine to use the 96w. I've used a 12w iPad adapter to see if it'll charge my 16" Macbook pro and it works as well as a 60w, 87w, 96w, etc. You just won't get fast charging with the 96w on the 16".

 

[macphoto861]

It's fine to use the 96w. I've used a 12w iPad adapter to see if it'll charge my 16" Macbook pro and it works as well as a 60w, 87w, 96w, etc. You just won't get fast charging with the 96w on the 16".

Yes, though it should be noted that if you're running some processor-intensive tasks for an extended period of time, a lower watt adapter might not be able to provide enough, and the computer will start to draw from the battery. I think my dock provides around 85 watts, and it does sometimes have to use the battery when I'm exporting from Lightroom, converting video, etc. Usually it's not a problem, because even at full utilization it only needs a small amount of power from the battery, though a few weeks ago I was converting a whole bunch of video files for many hours, and was surprised to see the battery was all the way down to 15% when I checked on it!