Comment by cactus2093 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cactus2093 | Hacker News Reader

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Genuinely curious, have you had your MacBook Pro knocked over from the power cord since switching away from MagSafe?

Lots of people complain about missing MagSafe but I’ve never seen or heard of this actually happening. I’m sure it has happened but it just doesn’t seem like a big problem. For me, just in the past month I’ve had the usb charger yanked out by the cord multiple times by people and pets tripping over it while working from home, but the laptop is heavy enough that it doesn’t budge and the cable comes out cleanly.

The benefit of having a standard port now, being able to get monitor, power, and usb connected through one cable, or being able to use the usb-c charger to charge other devices when traveling, is well worth the change IMO. I also used to get little metal specks stuck in the MagSafe port, and then realize the laptop hasn’t been charging all day and have to clear it out and make sure the contacts were connected securely. I wasn’t a big fan of MagSafe at all.

MagSafe was great when the average battery life was under four hours. You have to be plugged-in in weird places. It saved my laptop a couple of times when I was at University. The problem is not just knocking over the whole laptop, but you can damage the port as well.

With the current 8+ hours battery life, I only have it plugged in when I'm at my desk, so no risk of tripping over.

For me, the standard port overweights any other downside.

That's an interesting take on it

Still, I wouldn't want to discharge the battery if it's not needed as to save the cycles.

Isn't it worse to keep the battery 100% charged at all times?

Not any longer, as a modern device will discharge the battery a bit to keep it healthy.

I haven't had an incident yet, but I'm way more careful with a young kid (or myself). Leaving one charging on a couch, for example, isn't something I'm comfortable with both because of it sliding a foot or two on to the carpet or bending the connector.

More annoyance comes from removing of the charging indicators that were on the magsafe port. The only clue is a small "ding" sound when it starts charging, but is easy to miss and won't happen in deep sleep. I've plugged in a laptop not noticing someone had unplugged the other end until the next morning my computer was still dead. It was also nice that you could see that amber charging light turn green so you knew it was charged without opening the lid and waking it up.

I can see that it's not a necessity for many people, but I still have a 2015 13" Macbook Pro with MagSafe in addition to a newer 15" Macbook Pro, and my experience using both every day is that I positively mourn the difference.

I'm shocked that Apple has not taken it upon themselves to ensure that there's a usable magnetic adapter for the USB-C port, under their brand or through a partner. I've tried a couple of third-party adapters that were utter failures. I hope somebody succeeds someday, preferably Apple or with Apple's blessing, because I would be very slow to try another third-party adapter otherwise.

I knocked it over with MagSafe and it still failed to disconnect. It was the 2011 L-shaped plug and I managed to yank it at the perfectly wrong angle I suppose. The macbook lived but ended up with scratches and dents (that's how I discovered that an aluminum chassis maybe wasn't the best idea for a laptop). The new flimsy usb-c cable has a better chance of actually disconnecting.

I have younger kids, who would sometimes kick my cord with MagSafe and it wouldn't be a big deal; I would just connect again. Now I don't use my laptop around my kids if I'm charging.

The very first day I had my first USB-C mac i had an incident with my standing desk that Magsafe would have saved.

These days I tend to use my laptop at my desk with external monitors, but the thing that worries me the most when I'm somewhere else is the yanking of the cable weakening the and/or reducing the reliability. I had to re-solder the power adaptor on an old Acer a few times, I don't think I've got the parts or skills (or time) to do that on a few year old Mac.

The good thing about USB-C chargers, if you break the cable you can just buy a new one. No soldering necessary. I chew through a lot of MagSafe charges in the past few years. I fixed most of them, but you can't disassemble them without damaging it.

EDIT: If you talking about the connector inside your laptop, that is a different story.

Yeah, the connector inside the computer.

I was concerned about that myself, but so far so good. I suspect the ability to charge on either side makes a difference. I usually plug in on whatever side is closer to a wall and out of the way. Combined with all the other usb-c/tb benefits, i think the tradeoff is worth it.

My dog did it on several occasions.

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