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It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. E
by deathanatos 4y ago
It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. Every converter that has failed has failed in exactly the same way: the plug/cord connection at the laptop end becomes unreliable.
And every single one of them, across a range of manufacturers, has had the cord not be detachable from the brick. So what could have been a simple $5 replacement cord is now "replace the entire converter" and is now $30 if you try to find a third-party and pray they're not a fraud, or $50 from the manufacturer. Meanwhile at perfectly good converter (sans cord) is landfill.
But lo and behold: the brick-to-wall cord is detachable. And funny that, that one never breaks…
- rob_c 4y ago> But lo and behold: the brick-to-wall cord is detachable. And funny that, that one never breaks… Yup. But that shows they're willing to pretend to be recyclable...
- fragmede 4y agoIt’s easier and simpler to supply the country specific brick-to-wall cable (either IEC 60320 or IEC C13 to local) than it is to manufacture county specific power bricks.
- vladvasiliu 4y agoPlus, as a user, it's great to be able to only change the cable when traveling to a different country, instead of having to haul around adapters and stack them.
- sgtnoodle 4y agoIt's only two or three conductors, at a lower current, and they're significantly larger. It doesn't seem too crazy that the AC cables hold up better. I got a Razer once, and the power brick's integrated cable came with pre-frayed insulation, no extra charge. That laptop had tons of hardware bugs, too.
- fragmede 4y agoThankfully USB-C charging on my laptops has made that less of an issue. Of course the good chargers are like $80 instead but still.
- JohnBooty 4y ago$80USD? GaN 90/100W chargers from manufacturers like Anker and Monoprice can regularly be had for half of that. Right now there are a lot of 90W ones from unknown-to-me manufacturers for ~$32 on Amazon. I'm not trying to correct you here; I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y agoI value the absence of house fires too much to buy no-name power banks and chargers (chargers also come with the extra risk of yummy 230V on the output).
- folkrav 4y agoAnker is pretty reliable and far from a no-name IMHO
- fragmede 4y agoExactly this. I tried buying cheaper chargers but they'd inevitably break and I worry that they're damaging my USB-C cables. (I even ran across knockoff fake apple chargers). I don't always buy this[0] $80 charger but I've got a few of them lying about. [0] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX0J2AM/A/96w-usb-c-power-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX0J2AM/A/96w-usb-c-power...
- squeaky-clean 4y agoThe cheapest 100w Anker I see on Amazon is the $79.99 PowerPort III. The cheapest I see on their website is the $84.99 Anker 736 Nano II (with no listing for the PowerPort III). There are cheaper Anker chargers on Amazon that say 100w in the title but that's only because they include a 100w capable cable, the charger is a lower wattage.
- fiddlerwoaroof 4y agoRecent Macs have cords that come in three parts: brick-to-plug, brick, brick-to-laptop. It’s one of my favorite changes in the newer MacBook models.
- caconym_ 4y agoHigh power (~100W) charging with USB-C has been a game changer for me. I barely even remember the days when every electronic device came with its own grotty little power brick I had to keep track of and carry around with the device. I guess time will tell how reliable USB-C connectors are, but my naive impression is that the female connectors (device side) are very simple with no springs or other moving parts. I imagine my nice USB-C chargers (mostly Apple) will be useful for as long as USB-C lasts as an active standard.
- fiddlerwoaroof 4y agoI’ve personally found usb-c ports aren’t great longevity wise. They have a similar issue as I had with micro-USB: they stop clamping onto the plug and then you don’t get a reliable connection. I’ve found Lightning ports more reliable (with periodic lint cleaning) but it’s a shame that it’s a proprietary standard.
- jewel 4y agoI've been using this magnetic USB-C adapter on my laptop to reduce the wear and tear on the port: https://a.co/d/4JCadfi https://a.co/d/4JCadfi. I've been using it since March with no complaints. It'd be great if manufacturers could standardize on something like this so that the port could be flush.
- GauntletWizard 4y agoThey can't; Apple has a patent on Magsafe.
- 4y ago
- guerby 4y agoSame experience here. That's why my current laptop is a https://frame.work https://frame.work - USB-C to USB-C adapters means that the part that will fail is changeable - All four USB-C are able to charge the laptop. And the power brick also has detachable USB-C AND power cord cable. (And just for fun I ordered an upgrade to the motherboard, will use the old motherboard as always on PC in my home)
- catmanjan 4y agoIn my experience all usb c chargers are less reliable than barrel connectors, probably because of the microprocessors required for the handshake
- hanche 4y agoI have a food thermometer with a builtin rechargeable battery. It charges via usb-c, but so far I have not managed to charge it from a usb-c charger. It will only charge with the supplied usb-a to usb-c cable. I would love to understand why. But at least, they had the good sense to not supply their own charger.
- dizhn 4y agoIt might need a low amp device to charge. My vape does not charge with my good chargers but it does with older ones and the usb port on my laptop.
- vladvasiliu 4y agoDoesn't USB-C have a "basic mode"? As in, if it's unable to negotiate some kind of high-power PD mode, it will just deliver the basic USB2 5V/0.5A? I can charge my Sony headphones with anything from an old USB2 only PC, old Samsung USB-A phone charger to my 65 W HP USB-C power adapter. I don't think they have any kind of PD mode, I think they just expect regular 5V. The specs on the site say "USB charge" and the charging duration is 3 hours. They come with a USB-A to C cable.
- ksec 4y agoSome years ago I had a "debate" about this on HN. And if you know anything about BOM cost and hardware margins, the cost saving of crappy PSU and decent PSU is quite attractive. To the point manufacturer knew the probability of the PSU failing within certain time frame, now more commonly known as planned obsolescence. While I am not exactly an USB-C supporter. One of the side benefits is that they are much better quality and fixes this PSU issues.
- hef19898 4y agoWorking part time in the reliability field, lower MTBFs make for good cost reductions. Planned obsolescence is just an added benefit I think.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoYou have horrible luck. I've never had an AC-to-DC converter die and I've owned 6 going back to 2006 timeframe. Two of them are still used daily and they're from 2011 and 2013 respectively.
- osigurdson 4y agoI've had two XPS laptops die due to worn out power connections. I doubt these kinds of issues are rare.
- InvaderFizz 4y agoCertainly not rare for Apple users. I've replaced many MagSafe connectors over the years. My wife managed to go through three in the span of two years.
- osigurdson 4y agoIt is nice that laptops are now often USB-C powered.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoOn all phones I owned USB-C port weared out very quickly, so it couldn't be charged and data couldn't be transferred anymore. And it's pretty expensive to repair a USB-C port on a device. I now charge them exclusively wirelessly, and try to pace data connections, conserving the precious resource that is USB-C port longevity.
- osigurdson 4y agoThat is too bad. I thought (hoped) that they did a lot of work on the mechanical robustness of USB-C. I hope it isn't as bad as Apple's lightning connector.
- bundze 4y agoI have the exact same issue with my current laptop (2014 ASUS ZenBook) and I blame it on ASUS' poor design of the laptop-end plug. I have replaced the charger multiple times so far, about once a year I think. My SO has used a Lenovo for 4 years now and has never had this issue - however, their brick-to-wall cord broke recently, funnily enough.
- pseudo0 4y agoI mostly like ZenBooks, but they really need to spend an extra $5-10 on more durable charging components. Mine had the charging receiver inside the laptop fail from wear, so I had to pop it open, remove the broken one, and solder in a new one I'd bought online (around $30, but it would have been a couple hundred bucks to send it off for repairs). Of course then the hinges failed a few months later... It's very frustrating for a "premium" laptop to cut corners on stuff like that.
- SergeAx 4y agoBrick to wall cord depends on the country where your wall is located. Also, there's about two standards of power cord connection: trapeze like on desktop PC PSUs and three cylinders merged, so company can outsource power cords to a wholesale OEM. But USB-C will solve your problem. I currently throwed away my laptop brick and just using a GAN power supply with two USB-C ports. It also charges my phone, and, eventually, other stuff like VR headset, joysticks and so on. I have two things micro-USB left: Kindle reader and JBL speaker. I hope next generation of those will be manufactured with USB-C charging ports.
- wodenokoto 4y agoI’ve read that LED light bulbs have the same problem. The LED will easily last 25 years, as written on the box, but the electronics that power the LED won’t. I haven’t owned an LED bulb long enough to see this myself, so take it with a grain of salt.
- sokoloff 4y agoMost of my LED failures (moderately early adopter) have been power supply failures. Some bulbs (estimated 20%, mostly higher output ones) have lost SMD LEDs, in some cases having reductions in brightness as a portion of the bulb is then INOP. I’ve stopped taking them apart and looking into the failures once they got to be cheap enough to not care.
- josteink 4y ago> I haven’t owned an LED bulb long enough to see this myself, so take it with a grain of salt. I’ve had lots of different kinds of LED lighting, including LED bulbs and this is honestly the only reason I’ve had to replace them. The electronics powering the LED overheat and over time starts to fail. Some brands are worse than others, particularly cheap Chinese ones. They will break faster than you can replace them. Avoid at all cost. Other mid-range bulbs are better (like IKEA Trådfri) but still without what I’d call industrial reliability. Philips Hue are more reliable, but again at a higher price. In short, you get what you pay for. That said you can still have bad luck. For instance in my house we have semi-expensive Junostar LEDs (from the pro-market) for ceiling lights, but we received a bad batch with lot of flickering and had to have them all replaced. It was on warranty though ;)
- nine_k 4y agoBuying a higher-price bulb with an adequate radiator helps. I've lost 75% (3 out of 4) cheap LED bulbs to electronics overheating issues, withing a year. I've lost 16% (2 out of 12) expensive LED lamps to overheating, within 3 years. I'll use the extracted LEDs somewhere. I've lost 0% of LED lamps in my fridge to overheating in nearly 7 years :)
- dreamcompiler 4y agoI've started retrofitting my table lamps with 12v "RV" LEDs that have standard Edison bases. That way I can use my own power supply -- either a 12v wall wart or USB-C with PD and a 12v trigger.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoThose cords usually are replaceable, but involves opening and soldering the brick, which usually means damaging the information sticker to get to the screws. Still not as good as having it pluggable.