Apparently Apple updated the charger with the newest MacBook Airs and 13" Pro. From a 67w to a 70w. The new charger is smaller as an added benefit.
After watching the linked videos main channel for well over a year now, I am convinced most chargers are trash, including the popular Anker chargers, which I own a few of. He was very positive about the Apple charger though. Very low idle power if you leave it plugged in all the time, which I always like to hear.
Anyway, I found the below video interesting, and it’s nice to hear that Apple is making quality chargers.
This (relatively) new 70W power adapter has been getting consistently good reviews.
The new 140W power adapter (shipping with the 16” MBPs) is also GaN (the 96W one, shipping with 14” Max MBPs and higher-end Pro chips, is an older model, and not GaN though). I only wish they had a dual power adapter in that power range, like they have the 35W one, as that could come in handy.
Watching channels like I linked, they charge fine, but they are inefficient and/or don’t meet the power specifications they claim. Anker is better than others, but it’s a low bar.
I haven’t noticed any difference in charging speed or reliability, so I guess I’m not convinced I need to throw them out or pay two or three times as much for Apple-branded chargers.
Not saying you should, I over-exaggerated by calling them trash, but they aren’t great in general. It won’t matter to the average consumer because even if a charger is inefficient, the costs are going to be minimal and your devices are made so the charger can’t easily damage them. But, as you get into the bigger chargers/banks, a lot of times they do not meet what they claim to do.
That’s why it is nice to see Apple isn’t cutting corners and making efficient chargers. Most people won’t care. I do.
Where I live, Anker is not widely available (in fact, I don’t think any of the local shops have them), while other chargers (such as Satechi) cost as much as Apple’s or are just a bit cheaper at Apple’s authorised resellers. This makes choosing to just go with Apple relatively easy.
Off the top of my head, Anker and Ugreen do tend to do better in the tests, but it’s a toss up in a product field that is dominated by low cost products that no one really cares about. It’s not always the case though, for instance Anker has these charger/banks with fancy digital screens that brag about how they can quickly charge multiple devices. I bought one. Then I saw the review from the channel above and it was mostly marketing hype. The fancy digital screen didn’t display accurate numbers and charging 2 devices generated so much heat it slowed the thing way down. It could do the rates it claimed on the box for all of about 30 seconds until it got too hot.
But really, almost everything will work to charge your devices with no major problems. My main take away is that the more expensive, fancy chargers tend not to be worth the money. It’s rare he reviews a product and gets such positive praise as it did in the video linked above.
Usually chargers with multiple ports reach the highest wattage when only one port is in use. For example, I have a 65 watt two port Anker that delivers 65 watts when one port is used and 45 x 20 when both are in use. They don’t claim and I don’t expect anything different.
OTOH, putting a screen on a charger seems like a gimmick, and I’ve never bought or wanted anything like that.
Yes I am aware of how chargers work. It’s been a year or two since I watched the video, basically it didn’t meet it’s own marketing claims, but that is quite normal of the the chargers he reviews.
Here is the review of one the newer Anker models. The screen on this one does show correct data (I think this was an issue on their earlier products that soon got replaced by a new lineup where that was fixed). It gets a not recommended rating on it, for being flashy with a neat screen but it’s performance is not great. He notes that it doesn’t perform as well as other Anker products (like the 717).
Pros:
It delivers the power it says it can
Cool display that is accurate
It can share power better than many other 140w adaptors
Cons:
USB renegotiation - if you are using more than one port and you unplug one port, it briefly turns off power to all the ports, this can lead to things like charging loops
Inefficient compared other chargers, while not bad, not as good as other modern chargers
Noisy under heavy load
DC ripple
60 Hz AC ripple
But it will charge your products, so none of this matters to normal people like you and I. But this is why I said Anker are trash (which is unfair because he has reviewed some of their products well). It will charge your stuff, but they cut corners resulting in an inferior product. And in the case of this product, they aren’t cheap.
Side note, he liked the Rocoron 140w charger, a product I hadn’t heard of.
