I'm taking a five-day vacation soon, and was in-need of a good, fairly cheap portable charger for a MacBook Pro.I plan on using the laptop quite a bit on the road, and would appreciate the help.
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Taking a vacation; in need of a good portable charger
- Thread starter TheAppleGeek
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the charger that comes with your mac is fairly portable.
by "on the road" do you mean in the car? if so just get an inverter, plugs into the cigaretter lighter, and has a wall outlet on it. make sure the wattage is high enough to handle your charger. the wattage should be stamped on the charger itself.
should be able to get one at your local electronics store.
but as a reference.
45w - airs
60w - 13" (both macbooks and pros)
85w - 15" & 17"
apple has patented (or something similar, not quite sure) the magsafe connector, so if you want anything with that on it, you have to go through them.
for a while there was a company selling batteries with a magsafe cable on them (they would buy the power supplies, and cut the cables off) but apple shut them down.
by "on the road" do you mean in the car? if so just get an inverter, plugs into the cigaretter lighter, and has a wall outlet on it. make sure the wattage is high enough to handle your charger. the wattage should be stamped on the charger itself.
should be able to get one at your local electronics store.
but as a reference.
45w - airs
60w - 13" (both macbooks and pros)
85w - 15" & 17"
apple has patented (or something similar, not quite sure) the magsafe connector, so if you want anything with that on it, you have to go through them.
for a while there was a company selling batteries with a magsafe cable on them (they would buy the power supplies, and cut the cables off) but apple shut them down.
Yes, I should have been more clear. I need a car charger. I definitely plan on bringing the charger it came with.
just plug that into your cigarette lighter, and plug your existing charger into that, just make sure to check the wattage as mentioned above..
as an example, here's one from amazon, it has more than enough power for you laptop charger, and a USB port if you want to charge your phone or something else. and it's $20
Also, another word of advice: the power delivered from a vehicle's electric system is extremely dirty. Make sure any inverter you use has heavy filtering and surge protection gear built in or you might damage or even blow your charger, and/or laptop.
In particular, avoid keeping your laptop plugged in to vehicle power while starting the engine.
In particular, avoid keeping your laptop plugged in to vehicle power while starting the engine.