Perspective on Charging

[raythompsontn]

I am using a 35 watt dual USB-C charger from Apple to charge my 14" M4 Pro. I like the size, the folding plugs, the ability to charge two items if necessary. I do have the 96 watt charger from Apple that came with the machine but is bulky compared to the 35 watt.

The 35 watt charger does really well on charging my machine. Last night my 14" M4 went from a 50% charge to 100% charge in a hour and a half. That is more than good enough for my needs.

Generally overnight while I sleep, I plug my machine into the charger, then plug my iPhone and watch into the machine to charge. Thus I only have one connection to charger and I am charging 3 devices while I sleep.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

I guess the only reason for the fast brick is if you're out often. For me I plan to use the 16" MBP M4 Max at home mostly. Occasionally I'll take it out to use but at no point I would be using it out all the time where the battery will plunge so quick due to an intense workload.

So at home I just use a 108w belkin GaN 4-port brick [single output 96w only on one cable] that sits on my table. Its not the 140W that the 16" comes with but its plenty fast enough. Also have a 65W ugreen brick which i can use also but since my desk is wide i just use the

I wouldnt run the mbp on overnight charging imo, i would just plug in when its low and take it out when near 80-100% or whichever the times suit.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I run my 16" on a 70w port of a multi-charger at my desk... it's plugged in 95% of the time, and it's always fully charged when I do need to take it portable. The original 140W charger is in my workshop, in case I take the laptop down there.

 

[zeap]

So not all PD chargers are as awesome at 20volt PDO. With a usb "multimeter" inline you can see the voltage on load. You want it to over provision within spec as 20volts to 21volts. You don't want voltage sag even within the ETL 5% tolerance.

With the more featured (multimeter) devices you can also see on load ripple. Many of these will simply have higher amps to reach the marketed watts target. I wouldn't want this for my macbook pro. You do you.

After buying 20ish 20voltPDO chargers I ultimately only kept four of them.

 

[throAU]

I am using a 35 watt dual USB-C charger from Apple to charge my 14" M4 Pro. I like the size, the folding plugs, the ability to charge two items if necessary. I do have the 96 watt charger from Apple that came with the machine but is bulky compared to the 35 watt.

The 35 watt charger does really well on charging my machine. Last night my 14" M4 went from a 50% charge to 100% charge in a hour and a half. That is more than good enough for my needs.

Generally overnight while I sleep, I plug my machine into the charger, then plug my iPhone and watch into the machine to charge. Thus I only have one connection to charger and I am charging 3 devices while I sleep.

I ran my 14" M1 Pro off one of those chargers quite a bit at work for the same reasons. I think the main reason you might want to run off a more powerful charger is if you are pushing the machine it won't supply enough power and you'd be increasing battery cycles as the battery will be drained to keep up.

If you're just using it for charging overnight, all good - its probably better for the battery to charge slower anyway.

My m4 max is just basically getting charged either via an OWC thunderbolt dock (work) or my MSI 32" type C monitor (home).

 

[throAU]

Gonna drop this here for the battery management crowd...

2 weeks in and my M4 Max has decided to switch to 80% limit due to being rarely used on battery.

So in case you're wondering - and if you need to install al-dente immediately or whatever - it took 2 weeks for Apple's battery management on this generation to decide to limit charge.

 

[PotentPeas]

16" M2 Max system. I use it periodically with an Apple 30W adapter. It has never been a problem, it can do light "office stuff" and still charge the system, and if the system is idle (screen off) then it can charge to full in a few hours.

...If I do something computationally intensive, it will not have enough power off of the 30W and it will supplement by drawing from the battery.

Heck. Sometimes I use an 18W adapter, if I'm in bed writing for a long time. With this, it will just about keep the battery level (very slow discharge, a couple % per hour) if I am doing light "office stuff" (screen at max brightness), but it can slow-charge if the screen is off (charging maybe 10-12% per hour, which can get you most of a full charge overnight). Once I was on a trip for two days and forgot to grab my main power adapter, but I had one of these and I was fine.

(I even tried a 12W just for kicks. I think that is too low. I left it plugged in overnight and it only charged the battery up from like 55% to 75%. Very slow charge.)

I think it is generally fine to use a lower-powered adapter, especially if you're doing light work. The 140W is really there so that you can use the system full tilt (>80W?) and fast-charge the battery at the same time. I find it easier to grab a small adapter from a drawer when I'm going to be out for the day but know I'll need to use the laptop a fair amount, rather than untangle the 140W from my desk.

 

[dmccloud]

A couple days ago I was in a situation where I needed to connect my MBP to an external display but there were no available power outlets to connect the AC adapter to. I improvised and ran a USB to USB-C cable from a nearby desktop to the Mac. While it did not stop the battery from discharging during use, it did slow down the discharge rate enough that I could use it for the full 4 1/2 hours I was on site without running out of battery (78% to 37% over that four hour span).

This means that in a pinch, even a 5w power feed can at the very least extend your battery life. I don't think an x86 system could even boot at that power level.