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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a 2016, but I won't miss Magsafe. In every situation where Magsafe would have protected my laptop, it has failed to do so. If I grab my cable and yank as hard as I can, all that happens is the laptop slides across the desk. Every time I have tripped on the cable, it's pulled the laptop to the edge of the table, not unplugged. I imagine this problem becomes more common the lighter the laptop gets.

The only time Magsafe breaks like it's supposed to is when it's sitting on my lap and my leg bumps it, pushing it straight up. Which is just an annoyance, not a safety feature.

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I work remote, so I spend quite a bit of time at coffee shops and other places like that... MagSafe on my laptop has saved my laptop countless times. Sitting on a small table the rubber feet provide enough grip that if you give the cable a quick tug it becomes unplugged.

I am definitely going to miss MagSafe and am hoping the third party market comes up with something that will emulate it enough to where I don't have to worry about my laptop going flying because some cut doesn't watch where he is walking and accidentally kicks the cord.

Yeah, if you have it sitting on your desk and slowly pull on it the magnet will hold... but give it a quick tug, laptop will stay, cord will come with you.

Lots of people seem to like it, but same experience here -- I don't recall an instance of the machine being "saved" by MagSafe, but oh boy do I recall plugging it back in all the time when something moved a bit.

Except that I'm pretty sure that's one of the top use cases for Magsafe. Imagine if you didn't have a Magsafe connector and your leg bumped it, pushing it straight up. You'd have a ruined power connector... My Dell and Sony laptops both had that happen and stopped getting a consistent connection. With the Dell, the power connector was internally soldered on to the mobo too, so the repair was not cheap at all. :(

Every other laptop I've ever had, the power connector was at the back so you could avoid hitting it with your leg. With the MBP, its on the side and it's small enough that my lap is wider than the laptop, so my leg pushes on the power connector.

Magsafe might be better than breaking a connector, but those aren't the only choices that exist. There is a far better solution, and it's really odd that Apple hasn't figured it out.

The push for lighter laptops has probably meant that the force needed to disconnect the magsafe is greater than the force needed to drag your ultralight laptop along.

For me, I have a 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro and the magsafe works fine for me on that. I think this is one laptop people consider heavy though. (Personally I am alright with the weight and love its plethora of ports).

My guess is the typical scenario magsafe protects from is when you have your laptop on the side of the table, charging cable to the side and you step on it or pull it down. Don't have one, so can't test this theory.

Yeah if you pull it down, it snaps out pretty easy. Whenever I end up tripping on it, though, it's usually catching my foot and being pulled nearly straight out. I can actually push the Magsafe connector down until it bends far enough to touch the desk and then pull on it from that angle and it still just drags the laptop.

Maybe it's useful to some, and I agree it's great engineering... but it's never once worked for me in practice. I only find myself cursing when my leg bumps it and it stops charging.

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