Is it safe to use a 87W charger with the 16 MBP? Any long term effects or anything else I should be concerned about. I'm assuming it will take longer to charge the 16".
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Safe to use 87w charger with MBP
- Thread starter sfwalter
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No don't worry about it.
I've been working under full load with the 87w and no issue at all. Battery sticks to 100% too.
No problem - Apple laptops are really good about that. If you really hit it hard (video editing, etc.), it won't charge as fast as it does with the "right" charger. It will go well over 85W briefly (it'll go over 100W briefly), but its sustained power draw under heavy load is around 80W or a bit less, so it'll even charge a little bit under heavy load.
The one thing I wouldn't try with an 87W charger is to plug it in with the battery completely drained and then fire up Cinebench or something else that's really going to spike the power draw. Cinebench is the only thing I've tried that pulls 100W+
I've tried charging mine with a 60W dock, and that's not really enough for this machine - it doesn't hurt it, and it works just fine when I'm writing - but if I'm doing serious photo editing, it doesn't charge at all, and it sometimes discharges.
There are two reasons for the 100W charger - one is to provide enough power for spikes of a minute or less, even when the battery's drained. The second is to allow it to charge at a reasonable speed under heavy, sustained loads.
The one thing I wouldn't try with an 87W charger is to plug it in with the battery completely drained and then fire up Cinebench or something else that's really going to spike the power draw. Cinebench is the only thing I've tried that pulls 100W+
I've tried charging mine with a 60W dock, and that's not really enough for this machine - it doesn't hurt it, and it works just fine when I'm writing - but if I'm doing serious photo editing, it doesn't charge at all, and it sometimes discharges.
There are two reasons for the 100W charger - one is to provide enough power for spikes of a minute or less, even when the battery's drained. The second is to allow it to charge at a reasonable speed under heavy, sustained loads.
You can use any wattage USB-C power supply and it'll work, it just may have a few qualms. You can even charge your iPhone with the 96w USB-C brick and a USB-C to lightning cable. All Apple power supplies are interchangeable and the device will only pull what it needs. Using a smaller wattage brick on a device that came with a higher wattage one will result in slower charging and/or power drain under heavy sustained load, but never any damage.
Heck, you can charge your MBP off of an Anker USB-C powerbank. If the laptop is sleeping, it'll definitely charge it up, and if you're using it, it'll slow the battery drain.
Heck, you can charge your MBP off of an Anker USB-C powerbank. If the laptop is sleeping, it'll definitely charge it up, and if you're using it, it'll slow the battery drain.
Watts in the context of a charger is just the maximum the charger is capable of delivering measured by multiplying voltage by current (amps). The device connected to it will only use the power it needs and no more.
Easy way to think about it is a wall outlet in the US is 120 volts generally on a 15amp circuit breaker (120 x 15 = 1800 watts). If you plug a night light w/ 5 watt bulb into a wall outlet it only uses 5 watts regardless of the additional 1795 remaining. IE you can't damage the night light regardless of the circuits capacity.