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Comment by maxclark | Hacker News Reader

We’re in the same boat. USB-C mandatory going forward.

I kinda hate that the new MacBook Air went back to a MagSafe charger for this reason.

Something was wrong with their design of the last MacBook Airs with USB-C charging port. I'm very gentle with my electronics and yet the charging port broke two times in a row (fixed under warranty). My daughter's MacBook Air had the same internal break as well (fixed under warranty).

I suspect they didn't properly support the internals so the force of inserting a USB-C plug caused a crack or break over time (and a short time!).

I went out and bought cheap "MagSafe" like USB-C connectors for my machines and my kids (in college) machines. I personally WELCOME the return to MagSafe!

>I went out and bought cheap "MagSafe" like USB-C connectors for my machines and my kids (in college) machines. I personally WELCOME the return to MagSafe!

Be very careful with these; they can misalign as they come apart and put 20V onto pins not capable of handling it, blowing out the electronics for the port (and NOT covered by warranty).

Thanks for the warning. I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I'm kind of up against a wall. I need to use my laptop for work, but I can't keep sending it in for repairs (and I can't afford out-of-warranty repairs). I'm extremely gentle, but my MacBook Air needed the USB-C port replaced TWICE in just one month.

So, I went with the "let's not somehow magically break the physical port" route. I certainly hope the unofficial MagSafe connectors don't blow it out...

You still charge through the USB-C / Thunderbolt ports (and use a USB-C to USB-C cable with the provided power brick to do so). The MagSafe plug is just for convenience (and perhaps slightly higher wattage than is normally specced for USB-C on the beefier MBPs).

Also if you happen to trip over the magsafe cord, the possibility of snapping the connector is non-existent compared to the risk of using a USB-C cable.

It's of course a possibility but the Type C connection was designed to sacrifice the cable part first, both on the "repeated insertion" metric and for cases like this.

It's more about the computer flying off a table and into a hard surface in the USC-C trip case.

You can still charge via USB-C and Thunderbolt. I already had a bunch of USB C chargers and see no reason to buy additional USB-C to MagSafe cables when most the time USB-C to USB-C works just fine. At my desk I plug into a thunderbolt 3 dock and it works great. Seamless.

Having the MagSafe and the Thunderbolt 3/4 ports is a great combination. it's a welcome change on the road to have magsafe but I use TB3 at home with a dock.

Are you not able use the USB-C port to charge on the Air (or is it more that there's less ports available if you do that)? I'm able to for my M2 Macbook Pro and it has a magsafe port.

You can still charge through the USB-C ports, fwiw.

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