Don’t Swap Your MacBook Charger for a Cheap Fake
This scenario should be familiar to you: Your MacBook charger breaks, breaks, wears out, or simply stops working. Apple charges $ 80 for a replacement , but you found a fake charger on Amazon for a lot cheaper . What are you doing?
We have all found ourselves in this situation, and it is tempting to choose a cheaper alternative. In many cases, this advice makes sense – for example, when you buy HDMI cables . A closer look at the technology inside these MacBook chargers, however, reveals that it might be worth paying Apple tax if you need a replacement.
A few years ago, Google software engineer and tech enthusiast Ken Shirriff opened his MacBook charger to compare it to a fake, and the difference is striking. It’s visually clear that Apple is putting a ton of technology into its chargers, while the cheaper version has a ton of empty space. More importantly, Apple also places great emphasis on safety, while the counterfeit cuts corners that could put you at risk of electric shock or worse.
The Official MacBook Charger Overview features triple insulated wires, grounding and magnetic fields for safe power transmission. There is a small processor inside that adjusts the power and automatically disconnects the charger if the power gets too high. The Apple charger also has the ability to shut off as soon as it is disconnected from your laptop to reduce the risk of sparking.
By comparison, a cheaper knock off skips the filtering, grounding, and more sophisticated circuitry Apple uses to regulate the power going into your laptop. The third-party charger is not entirely hazardous (it includes duct tape and some other precautions), but Shirriff says it can still cause an unpleasant shock.
Apple chargers aren’t perfect. Cables do tend to wear out and they are definitely overpriced (even with all this additional technology inside), but this is one purchase you might not want to discount the price for – if you do, be careful with the buyer .