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Comment by cheald | Hacker News Reader

As a guy with small children, the loss of MagSafe is actually a huge downgrade for me. The number of times MagSafe has saved my laptop and/or power cable from damage after a child blitzed through the living room and tripped over the power cable is not insignificant.

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Before I got a Mac my first child knocked my old laptop over and the power cord ripped the power socket apart. I will not buy anything other than a child proof power connector. Sadly, nobody makes a serviceable laptop with one with easily replaceable/upgradeable battery, RAM and HDD anymore so I am using my old MBP until it dies.

I understand there is a market for these paper thin, disposable machines but Apple has lost the sensible buyer who wants a solid upgradable dev machine.

Seems that an aftermarket adapter incorporating a MagSafe-like feature should work:

    ===<cord>==E |magsafe| =E laptop

You're moving the disconnect point outside the laptop, but (in theory) could provide the capability to _any_ device.

That's a good idea but I think MagSafe is patent protected so it'd have to be 1st party.

Depends on the specifics of the patent.

Lenovo makes (well, made) a Thinkpad t430u, an ultrabook with a detatchable plate on the bottom. I think you can remove the battery, HD, and RAM. It opens with a latch -- no screws needed.

Video (sorry for linking to a Lenovo advertisement): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTZ7u5YNXV0&t=60

Thinkpad - I have a T430S (runs about 350$ aftermarket now). Upgradable CPU, RAM, HDD (I run SSD+HDD.. and still have space for an M2 SSD).

Great build, keyboard that perhaps beats the macbook

Yeah, no kidding. And not just children. I've had adults walk through it too. I hope this doesn't ever make it to the pro line. It's fine I suppose if you really only plug the device in to charge it once a day, like a phone, but I don't expect the battery to last all day if I'm doing really processor-intensive things, which I often do.

Don't expect to do anything processor-intensive on that fanless Mac.

I thought this was really odd. A lot of engineering went into getting 30% more battery storage inside the laptop, but then you trap all the heat in there! You'll easily lose that 30% extra storage to loss of battery performance due to the latent heat.

On the flip side, I understand this processor has a slower clock speed than any other hardware that Apple currently offers. Perhaps that explains both design decisions? Hopefully it balances out.

Maybe at 2 pounds, the laptop is so light that maybe magsafe is not effective any more.

There are also no moving parts on this machine.

No spinning rust hard disk, no fan.

I bet it could take a lick or two. Can't speak for the plastic or the glass screen though.

I have doubts about that. Sure, you possibly could drag the laptop by the MagSafe without it disconnecting if you drag carefully. But I feel like when you really yank on it, like you would when tripping over the cord, that even a 2 pound laptop would disconnect from the MagSafe without flying off the table.

Possibly. I think this is why they switched from the angled magsafe to the straight-on magsafe2. My Air took a flying leap off the kitchen table because the combination of angled magsafe and light weight meant it wouldn't disconnect.

Fortunately, the thing was closed, landed on the lid, bounced off the hardwood floor, did a flip, and was no worse for the wear. If it had been onto concrete or tile, or the lid had been open, it probably would have turned out worse.

My 2012 MBP retina has this infernal magsafe2 connector that disconnects every time I try to use it on my lap, but at least it'll disconnect if you trip on the cord. Or if you try to use one of the 5 magsafe1->magsafe2 adapters I've bought that consistently fail after a few months.

i think the idea is not to have it plugged in to power while using it, only charge overnight

That's a fine intention, but I sometimes like to compile code or use Chrome.

I don't think that you're the target audience - along with the majority of us here.

Then who is the target audience? Casual Facebook users will probably install Flash the moment they unbox the machine.

Students and teachers are the target audience. Salespeople are. Business people are. These people all have serious computing needs that are better met by an ultraportable device with long battery life than by anything that has more horsepower or more ports.

Casual Facebook users are not a target audience for anything, because almost everybody is a casual facebook user, including people who do 3D animation or need to compile huge codebases.

The grandparent post was talking about all-day battery life, not about horsepower or ports.

But I don't see that being realistic, yet, because (a) the new MacBook has less battery life than the 13" Air, (b) OS X is messier than iOS (system daemons love to run at 100% CPU once in a while), (c) as you said, almost everyone is a casual Facebook user and runs terrible crap like Flash. (iOS is at an advantage here again)

But yeah, it is a great device for people who only open their laptops occasionally and can recharge at night.

This seems to be true, but then I wonder who they expect to develop the software for their target audience?

People that buy Macbook Pro's?

Web developers

I'm a web developer and I can say that the new MacBook doesn't make me want to buy it because:

1. 12" is a weird size for me. I'd prefer 15" Pro edition.

2. One connector isn't enough, even with the adapter, I'd need more.

Well it's possible that one of these days Google will fix the huge battery drain Chrome causes on OSX.....

With the limited number of charge-discharge cycles that even LiPo batteries have (typically estimated at ~500), that means you'd be replacing the machine within its depreciation lifetime if you fully — or even mostly — discharged it daily.

Oh, wait. That benefits Apple, too...

Macbook batteries are rated at 80% after 1,000 cycles. And battery replacement on an MBA is a $129 ($199 for an MBP) service that they can do at the Apple Store while you wait. Lenovo wants $139 for a replacement battery for a T4xx of similar capacity.

I don't understand the problem, really. Apple WILL replace your battery. It's not like you have to throw away the laptop once the battery is dead. It costs £99 in the Apple Store, which is actually less money than a new battery for some Dell laptops costs.

Did Apple change from 80% battery life after 1000 cycles?

I'm seeing reports of Apple laptop batteries barely lasting an hour after 400 cycles, having 75% of their rated capacity after 900, and having 50% after 1100.

I think usage pattern probably matters far more than the strict cycle count. Specifically, "all-day" usage appears to correlate strongly with battery capacity falling off more sharply as cycle count increases — admittedly, based on user-reported behavior that I could find on the web with as much time as I can spare this afternoon to faff about on the matter.

They're not that bad in my experience. I'm at 1476 cycles and still have 87% of my capacity remaining.

Yeah, the number of charge cycles you get out of lithium ion batteries is known to be affected by how deeply you discharge them.

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