Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Sparkie_e

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 25, 2019
55
175
London, England
Hey all,
Just wondering if anyone is finding the magsafe charger with 12 pro to be slow, like really slow....
Using it with a 20w adapter I got with my iPad.
I know there is the article saying it's slower then you think, but like mine hasn't gone past 2% in over 30 mins....
 
  • Like
Reactions: edhchoe
Yeah mine has been extremely slow, but I think that's because it's restoring from an iCloud backup and still isn't finished. I guess I'll see how it does when the restore is done.
 
Mine is horribly slow, too. I put it on the MagSafe charger for about an hour and it only went up 2 or 3 percentage points. I’m giving it some latitude for the moment, since the iPhone is probably taxing the battery pretty hard during the setup phase. We’ll see how it does over the weekend, but as of this moment, it’s much slower than the 7.5W wireless charger I had been using.
 
Mine is horribly slow, too. I put it on the MagSafe charger for about an hour and it only went up 2 or 3 percentage points. I’m giving it some latitude for the moment, since the iPhone is probably taxing the battery pretty hard during the setup phase. We’ll see how it does over the weekend, but as of this moment, it’s much slower than the 7.5W wireless charger I had been using.

I'm thinking (hoping) it was the setup. I looked in the Battery section to see what could be going on, and there was a note about how it was currently restoring and not reserving battery life as normal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ScottC7
I'm thinking (hoping) it was the setup. I looked in the Battery section to see what could be going on, and there was a note about how it was currently restoring and not reserving battery life as normal.
It’s possible. I am setting up my iPhone as new, and I just checked the Battery section and don’t have that note. But anecdotally, I’ve had it hooked up to a charger for about 3 hours now. In the last half-hour, it’s been connected to an Anker 60W USB-C charger (2 outputs x 30W each). It’s gone up from 67% to 70% in that entire 3-hour time period.
 
I have the same situation with the MagSafe. The iPhone 12 Pro is charging very slowly. I also noticed that the green circle, which is supposed to display when the MagSafe is connected, would appear intermittently and rarely. I then downloaded a charge test app called Amperes and it displayed charging rate at about 4 watts. I am using my MacBook 29 watt charger. Because I uploaded my iCloud backup from my former 11 Pro Max and I thought it might be a software issue, I reset the phone and started fresh. The same problem continues and the charge app shows a charging rate of 4.24 watts. I also got the same results with and without the silicone MagSafe case.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ScottC7 and edhchoe
I have the same situation with the MagSafe. The iPhone 12 Pro is charging very slowly. I also noticed that the green circle, which is supposed to display when the MagSafe is connected, would appear intermittently and rarely. I then downloaded a charge test app called Amperes and it displayed charging rate at about 4 watts. I am using my MacBook 29 watt charger. Because I uploaded my iCloud backup from my former 11 Pro Max and I thought it might be a software issue, I reset the phone and started fresh. The same problem continues and the charge app shows a charging rate of 4.24 watts. I also got the same results with and without the silicone MagSafe case.
Wow, that’s a far cry from the spec’d 15 watts we are supposed to get. I had high hopes for this, and am hoping this is a bad batch or a correctable issue.

Is anyone seeing the expected performance from this MagSafe charging puck? I hope this isn’t specific to certain iPhones.
 
Okay there is a very comprehensive review that’s just come up on YouTube which is quite detailed and worth a look. This guy reviews all wireless chargers including the MagSafe and tests them on android phones, older Apple phones and the iPhone 12. He also tests the chargers using different charging bricks.
His conclusion seems to be that the magsafe charger is the best if you use it with apples new 20W charging brick as he concludes that the two were designed to work together to ensure maximum efficiency.


 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ScottC7
Okay there is a very comprehensive review that’s just come up on YouTube which is quite detailed and worth a look. This guy reviews all wireless chargers including the MagSafe and tests them on android phones, older Apple phones and the iPhone 12. He also tests the chargers using different charging bricks.
His conclusion seems to be that the magsafe charger is the best if you use it with apples new 20W charging brick as he concludes that the two were designed to work together to ensure maximum efficiency.


Thank you! I will buy the 20 Watt charger to test it out. This morning I tried using my 16 inch MacBook Pro charger and got a rate of 15.48w but then after 3 reconnects I got 9.38w for each charge. So it appears the YouTube video is correct about the 20w efficiency. Also, I realized the green circle will only come up when with the phone is asleep or with the Lock Screen.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bazooka-joe
Okay there is a very comprehensive review that’s just come up on YouTube which is quite detailed and worth a look. This guy reviews all wireless chargers including the MagSafe and tests them on android phones, older Apple phones and the iPhone 12. He also tests the chargers using different charging bricks.
His conclusion seems to be that the magsafe charger is the best if you use it with apples new 20W charging brick as he concludes that the two were designed to work together to ensure maximum efficiency.


That is very interesting - thanks. I’m left to conclude that Apple may have done something to the circuitry of their 20W USB-C charging brick to optimize it for use with the MagSafe cable. However, if true, that’s infuriating and frankly, amazing. They must know how many 3rd-party charging bricks there are out there (many of them are from very reputable brands, too), and this would essentially make their purchase somewhat of a waste.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bazooka-joe
I did the same test as the posted video above, with my iphone 12 pro using anker 20w nano brick with magsafe, in exactly 14 minutes my phone was charged up from 50% to 64%, im surprised that the anker 20w was faster than the apple 20w
 
  • Wow
Reactions: jbachandouris
I've got an iPhone X and no need to upgrade to the 12, was excited about the MagSafe and the 20W charger to replace my Mophie wireless charger.

Extremely disappointing, thought I'd share the results of my Amperes 4 testing:

10 tests. Average Watts 2.35. Average time to increase 1% of battery life 180 seconds.

When I heard that MagSafe was going to be backwards compatible and capable of 15W speeds I thought it would be an upgrade from my Mophie and it's 7.5W. Hey, no magnets, but it's 2x as powerful, probably would get a little performance bump and that great new sleek form factor that's perfect for travel. At the very least, I thought, I'd be at the same 7.5W.

Never did I imagine that Apple would cap this thing at 2.4W. So I've got an $80 charger setup that has 25% of the speed of a three year old Mophie wireless charger and 50% of the speed of the drawerful of little cube USB pieces of crap.

Wonderful.
 
Amperes - battery charge info
I tried that one but it gave me mA figures which didn’t really make sense.

Using Watts Lite now & thought it was going ok, but I’m getting the same unrealistic wattage out of both the USB-C (wired) & USB-A (third party wireless stand) ports on my third party 18w brick...readings of 23w, which isn’t right...

Doing more testing now...
 
I tried that one but it gave me mA figures which didn’t really make sense.

Using Watts Lite now & thought it was going ok, but I’m getting the same unrealistic wattage out of both the USB-C (wired) & USB-A (third party wireless stand) ports on my third party 18w brick...readings of 23w, which isn’t right...

Doing more testing now...

Amperes, it’s $2.99. Same one used in the YouTube video.
 
Ok but what about with the fast charger that came with the iPhone 11? That was 18W I believe.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.