Customer Reviews and Ratings for Apple 85W MagSafe Power Adapter | Hacker News Reader

Customer Reviews and Ratings for Apple 85W MagSafe Power Adapter

store.apple.com

83 pointsamima76 comments

The problems most people experience with these are probably caused by Apple not placing adequate stress relief on the cable where it meets the block or magnetic connector. Apple does this with all their cables because Jobs didn't like the look of stress relieved cables. This is the price you pay for a pretty power adapter!

This is a design decision that Apple should probably revisit.

Edit: Some people have said that proper stress relief would increase Apple's costs. Below is a link to some off-the-shelf cable stress-relief parts. I guarantee that Apple would save money during manufacturing if they used parts like these instead of the custom stuff they use now. The only downside is that their cables would look like everybody else's properly stress relieved cables instead of something uniquely Apple.

http://www.cable-strain-relief.com/

short-lived accessories like this and iphone charging cables are very profitable. stress relief might cut the number they sell in half.

Or double their costs, I got a free replacement for a MacBook charging cable 3+ years after purchase a couple of years ago.

I still think it's a problem of user error. In this house we've got first gen iPod touch cables in daily use , a vintage iPad 2 cable which is fine and 4 lightning cabled devices that are fine. I think a lot of people just yank on the cable rather than the connector.

When you are designing consumer electronics, there is literally no such thing as user error. Except for people who are in love with their gadgets and take care of them as if they were their children, no one is going to pay attention to how they handle something as trivial as a cable.

If users yank on the cable rather than the connector, the correct solution is to make the cable more durable, not to educate users on the intricate details of cable handling.

I wouldn't call it user error to abuse your cables to the point of failure (they should totally be tougher), but I'm also realistic: many companies cheap out on the cables, and it's difficult to tell from looking at them whether they're cheap or not, so if you want them to last, you have to assume they're fragile and be careful with them. This attitude has gotten me far with my MBP power adapters, which have both been working flawlessly since 2010 despite a lot of other people apparently having theirs fall apart.

Seems like an opportunity for someone to invent a stress relief mechanism that meets their aesthetic requirements.

I mold sugru into a strain relief on my MagSafe adapters. http://sugru.com/

"everybody else's properly stress relieved cables"

Which, to be fair, are not that great either

I've seen several cables fail with them.

Apple or not, it looks like they're too short or not gradual enough (you want less bending on the part closest to the device and more bending further from it)

I love the "spring" strain relief on my ATH-M50 headphones.

We have started wrapping supporting tape at the stress points. Does anyone know if there any reason not to do this for safety reasons? (It does not look good, but we don't care).

Bear in mind the selection bias in effect.

People are generally more likely to review a product, especially one as mundane as a replacement power adapter, if they have had a negative experience with it.

One of, if not the most common, reasons for purchasing a replacement power adapter will be due to a failure of an original adapter, leading to negative experiences.

Mine burnt through last year (after three years) and i didn't review it. A friend of mine has got her third in two years and didn't review either. This is exactly what happens:

"I've had two adapters break on me, the wire somehow shorts out and melts near the "square". Really poor design, love the computers but the adapters are terrible." (one of the reviews)

The wire is super thin, i'm not saying it's planned obsolescence, but it's close.

edit: english

I hope you meant planned obsolescence.

Yup - sorry, i'm not a native english speaker :)

You can buy a replacement cord for less than 10 bucks.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D...

Having said that, I wouldn't feel comfortable opening the power adapter and rewiring a new cord... I'm sure it's easy and safe, but still...

Yeah I'm not that much of an electronics guy.. ;-)

So how many returns versus number sold. Only Apple know and I can understand a reluctance to publish hard numbers. Perhaps if all manufacturers did publish numbers these minor 1st world problems would be put into perspective?

to chalk stuff like this up to selection bias is ridiculous... wouldn't every product on the site have equally bad reviews then?

hashtag apple-fanboy-armchair-social-science

To that effect, it's worth consider the same product has 188 reviews on Amazon.com with a 4 star rating:

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Magsafe-Portable-Adapter-MacBook...

This is particularly interesting, because people seem to view this an appropriate forum to let Apple know there's a problem with an individual product, as opposed to calling Customer Care (which is the appropriate action). The same thing happens in the Dev Forums, where angry folks complain about the beta they installed acting badly instead of filing a Radar, or even in individual app reviews despite a support link on every app's page.

Many of the big companies don't care at all about customer care calls. Public shaming via a discussion board may work better.

Another issue I have with the magsafe is that in any country with more than 110V outlets (~70% of the world), there's significant charge leakage into the macbook body if you don't connect with a 3-prong adapter.

I use a US macbook power adapter (Type-B) and a travel adapter. My Type-D (India) is only 2-prong, but my Type-G (Singapore) one is 3 prong. Anywhere I wind up using the Type-D, I get continuous minor shocks through my palms as I use my computer =/

This seems to be the case for every magsafe adapter and every macbook air (sample size = 3, different revs bought from different outlets 2012-2014).

Is this normal? I don't recall experiencing this on any other device I've used which is rated "110V - 240V" paired with a Type-B-to-D adapter

I get the same thing in the US, but much less noticeable. I get a tingling feeling in my hands / palm using the 2 prong adapter. Since it was unexpected, I searched a little bit and it seems to happen to everyone. (13-in MBA 2012)

>> I get a tingling feeling in my hands / palm

Is this when touching the chassis of the laptop?

I occasionally get that on both my Macbook Pro and my Surface Pro.

I saw that once in a computer lab that had all-metal desks. There was on desk in particular that if you grabbed it and a nearby desk, you would get a strong although not painful continuous electrical shock. The sensation was very similar to those trick shock pens that you find in novelty stores.

I would say that that should not be normal. Anything that does that is defective. If it is a normal occurrence with Apple power adapters, I would say that those power adapters are categorically defective.

I've noticed this on a few different configurations. I don't notice it as much with my personal MacBook Pro, but my work MBP with the US 2-prong adapter as well as my work Mac Mini both tingle when I touch them or shock me through my keyboard pretty consistently. I just had my helpdesk replace the MagSafe brick for the MBP, so I'm interested to see Monday if the shocks go down. I sure hope so - I've become trained to fear the first touch to my keyboard.

I think that's why when you buy a replacement adaptor in India, they give one with UK plug (which has the three prong). However, even with such an adaptor, I experience earth issues (if put my plugged in headphones around my neck, they shock like eletriculing leashes).

I would estimate I own about 10 magsafe chargers. Some are nearly 6 years old. None have frayed and all are in regular use, including moving them about with the laptops. I'm not particularly careful with my electronics, either.

Also - who goes to leave a positive review of a charger? There's clearly some selection bias happening with the reviews.

Our office has probably on the order of 40 magsafe chargers, and my home has at least 10 (not all of which are functional). The chargers fray and short out. They always have, and they continue to do so even in the most recent RMBP iteration.

This has been a continuous weakness with Apple chargers across every product line I've used back to the TiBook. They are pretty, and they are very functional, but they are not resilient.

I believe there were more bad ones in 2008-2011 than today; I haven't yet had a MagSafe2 adapter fail, and I saw child mortality on the T-shaped and L-shaped magsafe1 connectors after 3-6 months. The "yellowing and then die" seemed particular to one batch of insulation; regular fraying, sure.

I have one RMBP MS2 adapter that only works if the cable is positioned just right (ie, I can charge from it overnight on a table, but it's ineffective on my lap).

The new ones definitely do seem to be better.

Oh yeah, I have that problem too :( It's even worse when you have a speck hardshell case on it.

Most of my personal (~10) 85W collection is T and L shaped magsafe1 with the $10 adapter and magcozy (http://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Industries-MagCozy-Clear/dp/B00ER...) shock cords to attach them, because sometimes someone visits and needs a magsafe1. Those are even more sensitive to positioning.

(Great "life hack" is leaving chargers wherever you're likely to sit. I keep one in each bag, two on each desk, two at the couch, two in bed, one in the car.)

Twin adapters at desks in an office also works great, and of course conference rooms full of them. I was so annoyed when Lenovo went from 14V to 20V on the thinkpads.

That is a little scary. I would toss that sucker.

Perhaps the reason you have not seen any failures is because your usage is spread over 10 different chargers, instead of concentrated on 1?

Unless you have 10 different laptops in use simultaneously such that you are putting in 10x as many laptop hours as normal people...

I've had problems with so many Apple products over the years that I've stopped buying them. The last thing I bought was a 2011 MBP (hefty top line i7). Total waste of money. It was an insurance replacement for the 2010 one that literally caught fire when a drink was spilled under the edge of it. No product should fail in that manor. Current MBP periodically white screens and hangs and you have to turn it off for an hour (nvidia GPU problem).

On my third magsafe adapter. The first one just stopped working. The second one burned out about five inches from the magsafe connector. The second one resulted in a fairly large argument at the genius (idiot) bar because it was out of the limited warranty. After explaining how dangerous this is (I'm a qualified EE) loudly in front of other customers they replaced it.

Oh and the amount of shit I've had to deal with when incompetent Apple store staff decide the only option is to nuke the machine for even the simplest software problem. Fortunately within my circle of contacts they've learned to come to me first rather than start again every time.

Back to the original point though: one exploding MBP, two dead magsafe adapters, a dead logic board in a 2006 iMac, several frayed 30 pin cables, mac mini external power supply blew up and a dead cinema display panel, file system corruption in 2 OSX releases, £200/pop repair bill for iPhones if you drop them, the joke that was the iPhone 4, iOS constant upselling, iWork being a total piece of stink, iCloud periodic data loss. Ugh.

No more. Paying a premium for this is illogical.

Buying refurb Lenovo kit and bottom end windows phones. With the leftover cash I'm throwing it at my mortgage instead. Better investment.

Edi: to add insult to injury, the alloy they use for MBP and Air machines contains nickel so any unfortunate people with a nickel sensitivity come up in blisters using these machines.

Design over engineering. That is all.

Well, as another data point, my MagSafe adapter from July 2007 is still operational and has never had a problem.

Your mileage may vary. I've had mostly no problems with any of the Apple products I've owned over the last few decades, and for those occasions where I did, they were quick and happy to replace them - from overnight shipping of a box and next day return in the time before the Apple Store to store-based fixes with loaners.

The defect rate in cameras on iphones and ipads is just through the roof. We have like 4 ipads in this office and at least 2 of them have one camera that puts out garbage quality pictures. Ditto on one of our iphones. Our old iphone 4 had serious reception issues, the 4s doesn't connect to wifi since iOS 7. Our Mac has a line of dead pixels and of course the monitor is also the desktop because that makes sense. Oh and I've gone through 1 power adapter that cost like $80 for some reason. I have lost track of how many mini display(whatever the macs use?) to hdmi cables have failed. Of course all of this stuff costs way above what it should....

>> to add insult to injury, the alloy they use for MBP and Air machines contains nickel so any unfortunate people with a nickel sensitivity come up in blisters using these machines.

This totally explains my wrist rashes. Thanks.

Yeah it's a total bugger.

The wrist rashes might actually be the sharp edge on the front of the unit and might be posture related.

This is what 2 weeks of using an MBP did to my hands as a comparison point:

http://i.imgur.com/HgDquuE.jpg

I put screen protectors on it in the end to stop having to touch it directly.

I've had five or six of these replaced by Apple, for free.

You have to see someone at the Genius Bar, for which it's best to get an appointment.. very easy especially if you have the Apple Store app.

A few times I've been rejected, and they've said: "we recommend you buy a replacement, the cost is $79, they're over on that shelf." But each of those times, I tried again with a different Genius (on a different day) and got the replacement.

Usually it's either the magsafe head itself which doesn't seem to want to connect well, or the cord right next to the magsafe, which frays or splits open.

Generally I baby my cords but a couple of them have been abused by other people.

Overall I'd say this is the single most problematic Apple hardware I've ever encountered, but then I'm still happy because generally Apple has handled the situation well, other than a few "bad apple," so to speak, Geniuses who were not willing to help.

My experience was over and over again "oh, your notebook is out of warranty, not going to replace it, go spend $80".

So now at the end of one year, I'll damage it intentionally so they can replace it. I'm done with paying $80 for a cable that lasts little better than a year.

Mine frayed and shorted after less than a year. Like any Apple product owner, this wasn't the first time an Apple cord fell to pieces, and at one point in the past (before October 2011), I even brought it back to the Apple Store and they replaced my cables no questions asked, great service.

This time, however, when I brought my adapter and cables into the store for them to look at (kind of an inconvenience, don't live near one), I was told by a Genius that no one has problems with their laptop adapters and phone cables, no one in the store has ever had a problem with them, no one ever brings them to the store frayed, and that I must abuse my hardware and there was nothing they could do to help. I actually had to resort to pulling up a link to the class action suit to prove him wrong, absolutely terrible experience. With manager assistance, they reluctantly agreed to replace it since they saw my computer was one week off AppleCare, but added notes to my account to ensure that they would never do it again...and stressed that power adapter frays aren't in the scope of AppleCare.

I was really surprised and disappointed by the whole experience - and can only assume that there's massive pressure from above to avoid replacing them as they're so expensive and that results in Genius staffers acting incredulous and telling stories when you show them your long, thin fire hazards (frustrated during the exchange, I made a comment about how the knockoff iPhone cords are so much more reliable and less fire-hazardy, and he then made a point to closely inspect my frayed-Apple cords to ensure that they weren't knockoffs like I was some kind of fraudster, oof).

Anyway, reinforced those things immediately (still frustrated on a daily - the brick gets boil-an-egg hot and sneezing will cause the adapter to pop out) and I'll be doing what I can to avoid visiting ye olde Apple Store in the future.

I nearly had to purchase my Adapter as well, but I fixed it with Sugru (The wires frayed where it connects to MPB) and it seems pretty solid now . $10 for $80 adapter not bad.

EDIT: http://drwsxce6xtjnu.cloudfront.net/stories/image1s/1296/lar...

I assume most of the people who go to that review page are the ones with bad experiences? Otherwise, who would review a power adapter?

Listen in on the phone conversations a plumber has and you'd get the impressions that no one's pipes work.

Apple settled a class-action lawsuit over their power adapters, which makes it much easier to receive a free replacement these days, but they seem to refuse to fix the design of the cords.

I don't know what I find more amazing -- that Apple's power cords don't start fires and kill people on a regular basis, or that Apple isn't sufficiently worried that this will happen to hire competent engineers to design better ones. It's one of life's great mysteries. The same story appears on the front page of one news site or another at least once a year, and Apple does nothing.

I've had 3 adaptors break over the past few years due to fraying near the computer-side plug. For some reason, they seem to be much more susceptible to damage by twisting than all my other cables. Perhaps it has something to do with the plastic material and frequent coiling. Really a shame, since I love everything else about my Macbook.

Same here.

The most annoying part is that I'm very gentle with the cable--I coil all of my cables[0] so as not to cause undue stress on the conductors inside of the wire

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEd7ru24Vx0

It's amazing how much Apple sweat the details on the magsafe plug on the computer side but so little to part that goes into the wall.

It's near impossible to use the two prong plug in many situations (i.e. crowded power bars, outlets that are too far for the short thin wire to reach), so I have to carry the unwieldy 3 prong extension with me all the time, and it doesn't wrap so nicely around the brick in the same way the thin wire to the laptop does.

In all fairness, the Surface Pro's power brick can be just as stupid. Too short on both ends.

"so I have to carry the unwieldy 3 prong extension with me all the time"

You can get one of those short 1 foot lightweight cord extenders (search amazon for "cord extender")

The thing is, the length of the 3 prong extension cord is a good length (4 feet?).

The power cord problems occur most when I visit a client who puts me at a desk where the power outlet is not in a convenient place and is full of other junk that I can't just unplug. One foot is not going to cut it, and and a four foot cord is just going to be as unwieldy as Apple's 3-prong, which came with my computer.

The only two laptop manufacturers that I've ever had issues for cord length are Apple and Microsoft (Surface Pro).

I would guess that if Apple removed those stupid fold-out cable wrap points they would see a significant drop in failure rates.

This has been a problem since 2007. I went through 3 chargers on my Macbook Pro back then.

Bizarre for a company that usually adhere's to high manufacturing standards.

>> Bizarre for a company that usually adhere's to high manufacturing standards.

That's more perception than reality. They're better than the cheaper low end commodity manufacturers, but so is Lenovo and Dell's higher end stuff.

Apple, however, is far from perfect in this regard.

I have one of those 2011 Macbook Pros that you might have heard about. I've already replaced my motherboard once to address the GPU issue, and it took a couple more months for the problem to appear again. I'm kinda stuck with it now because my AppleCare ran out, and I'm not forking out >$500 plus tax to replace a part on a 3 year old computer. I'm also not about to stick my motherboard in the oven to try to fix it either (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7371908).

Heck, it's been a problem since 2002. My G3 800 iBook's power adapter literally went up in smoke.

I've made all of mine last by wrapping them correctly. Haven't destroyed one yet since.

This video seems to recommend the way I do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x5szE3XHb8

Same. I have 4 adapters floating around right now (my laptop, wife's laptop, work-provided laptop and the spare 85 adapter I have kicking around) and none of them have had a single issue in the 1-3 years I've had them.

What the fuck are people doing with those power adapters?

I am using the 45W magsafe 2 on a MBA - traveling, unplugging and packing up on a daily basis. frequently changing the outlet adapters from US to various EU and Asia.

Have been doing this since 2012 on this MBA - works like a charm. magnet is strong and stays in place. no cable issues at all.

same reviews though. baffling.

I think most people don't give a rat's ass about how they treat their adapters

Maybe the Apple ones are slightly less forgiving about being mistreated, still, most of them will fail eventually

I've never had a charger failure like the ones described, either Apple or other PC charger (however, I had the power connector fail on a previous notebook)

Same happened to mine, fraying near the MagSafe head. I tried taping it up with electrical tape, but it would only work for a couple weeks at a time. I finally covered it with white Sugru, and it's been going strong for more than a year now. It's pretty silly you have to do this, but at least it's a cheap fix.

I've gone through two or three power adapters in the last three years. They fray pretty quickly, and I've learned that you should always handle them by the thicker cord, being very careful not to put any pressure on the thinner cord.

But that's not the biggest problem with these things. I foolishly bought a unibody rMBP, which means it'll become a desktop-only laptop in just a year or two, once its battery runs fully out. Plus I can't upgrade most of the components, I'll just have to buy a new computer.

But that's fine. I think I'll go the "nerdy" way and buy an older Thinkpad and just run Debian on it and just stay in emacs throughout my workday. Then I'll be able to upgrade parts when needed, swap out the battery when it dies, and be able to run linux on decently supported hardware.

One trick you can try is to reinforce the ends of the thinner wire with a bit of Sugru.

Don't underestimate the lengths the Genius Bar will go to keep your computer happy. Especially if you have AppleCare, which you can still buy if you got the machine less than a year ago. But even without AppleCare, their repair prices have been getting ridiculously low, so I wouldn't assume a battery replacement will be off the table.

I have replaced ~3 Mac power adapters for free at Apple stores by taking a computer which has valid warranty coverage in, giving them the serial number and a failed adapter, and saying "purchased at the same time" (when it was an 85W which failed, and an MBA13 which comes with the 45W was my only laptop under applecare, or more recently, t-shaped vs. l-shaped vs. magsafe2 isses with my rMBP15.

They never really complain; I honestly don't keep track of which adapters go with which laptops in general, but they're all obviously made by Apple, and failed due to manufacturer defect (yellowing and cracking of the plastic on the DC feed), so it's in Apple's interest replacing them for ~$25 cost, rather than annoying a $mm lifetime value customer.

+1 for this article of bad reviews. I would have difficulty counting the number of replacement power adapters I have bought for my, my wife's, my grand children's, etc. Mac laptops.

There is a reason Apple is such a profitable company: they exploit their little walled garden.

Of topic, but I really fell out of love with Apple when I discovered that my iTunes music library was unusable on my android phone. Converting all my music from my $25/year iTunes Match account to Amazon Music Cloud was a nuisance, but now I can play my music on all my devices.

Seems to be a rash of 1 star ratings in the past few months. Something doesn't seem right.

While you could say that this is because of some manufacturing redesign or batch problem, something about the reviews and the way they are written (almost to similar) makes me wonder how accurate this info is. Nothing also that there is no way to see if the reviewer has left reviews on anything else in the Apple store. After all anyone with an Apple ID can leave a review.

I've never had much luck with laptop power adapters over the years (had to replace every dell adapter I've ever had and a couple of aftermarket ones). Had to replace the magsafe for my late 2008 macbook once, but I bought the macbook and power adapter used, so I can't quite vouch for how well it was treated prior to me owning it. Bought a cheap aftermarket magsafe adapter and it's been running well for over a year now.

I have had the cords fail where the thin cord attaches to the adapter. The weird thing about the design to me isn't that the thin part of the cable can fail at the bends--I understand trying to cut out weight and arguably going a bit far--but that the big thick extension cable which you can swap out the built-in plug for seems to have been designed for a server, not a laptop. I never carry it with me for that reason.

Most reviewers are clearly affected by the price. They're right, the price for these adaptors seems exorbitant.

In fairness to Apple, first party adapters for most laptops are about the same price.

The catch is that Apple's patented MagSafe prevents you from buying a universal adapter from a reputable brand.

You can buy a knockoff (I have) from China (i.e., dealextreme), but you have to be very trusting. I stopped using my knockoffs after they started getting really hot. I only use them in a pinch for short periods of time now.

I've had the same problem with the last 3-4 Apple power adaptors.

I usually walk into an Apple store and start complaining noisily, in close proximity to store staff who are demonstrating laptops to new customers. Then I leave with my new, free charger.

What's wrong with the suggestion to put magnetic connector onto the brick and have connectors on both sides of the cable?

Apple (and all the other manufacturers) did that with USB chargers, why not to do the same with laptop chargers?

I never, ever use the fold-out thingies for coiling the cord, becauseI haven't figured out a way to get the cord on there without severely stressing the connection to the brick.

Had this been about Microsoft all the comments on this HN thread would have been in a different tone.

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