I’ve never understood why the laptop power adapter doesn’t snap in firmly like a headphone jack. It is so frustrating to barely move a laptop and have the cord unplug. 30 minutes later the low battery warning comes up and you realize it unplugged itself. From my experience, the plug is reasonably tight the first year you own a laptop. Year two it falls out a couple times a week. By year three its falling out anytime you move the laptop around.
Was there any rhyme or reason behind the laptop power plug design? Was there a design purpose in a plug that falls out so easily?
Who can we [DEL]beat up[/DEL] thank for such a masterfully intelligent design? Any specific person that is [DEL]blamed[/DEL] credited for this design?
Laptop plugs weren’t always magnetic. They used to be tight, physical connections. But many people got tired of tripping over the cord, yanking the laptop off the table and usually breaking it.
I remember the first time I saw a magnetic attachment. I thought it was a work of genius.
To better appreciate a properly designed jack. here is the female receptacle of a guitar amp jack. See that heavy spring? It fits down into the notch of the plug.
Rock N Roll guys like Keith Richards can run around the stage and never worry about their guitar unplugging in the middle of a concert. Why can’t I move my laptop 6 inches without it unplugging?
Magnetic? I didn’t realize a laptop jack had magnets in it. Interesting.
You don’t want laptop power cords to lock in. For one thing, if they attached securely a person or animal tripping over the cord would be likely to yank the whole thing down to the floor and probably break it. In addition, attaching securely means all the stress of every movement transfers to the socket and its attachment to whatever circuit board it’s on. You don’t want that breaking either.
Maybe you got a faulty one. I’ve had a MacBook Pro for seven years and never noticed a difference in the strength of the magnetic jack; it still holds like a champ. Or maybe you’ve got a non-Mac laptop with a different jack design that’s just shoddy.
I wished more affordable computers had magnetic cords, not just Apples. Both myself and my stepfather have broken the power jack on the laptop after tripping on the cord, and in his case it never made good contact after that. We never, ever use our laptop without a cord so it’s always there to trip over.
No, that’s an adjective meaning I like my MacBook to be thin, not a model. MacBooks (made since 2006) all use the MagSafe connector.
I’ve had mine for over 5 years and the power connector still works great. By contrast, I did break the Ethernet connector one time by tripping over the cable. Fortunately it was just the locking tab and it does still work.
I looked up what appears to be a typical 1/4 audio jack. It’s more than 3/4" in diameter. Something using it would probably be at least an inch thick with casing. My MacBook is just over half an inch (and it’s over five years old, the newest ones are much thinner).
Another thing is you could probably never get a 1/4 plug carrying power UL/CE-approved - I’ve seen laptop power adapters up to ~150W (19.5V @ 7.7A). Shorting that (which would be easy, with the contacts about 2mm apart) could easily start a fire by sparking or heating. Round connectors with one contact on the inside and one on the outside are a very easy way to avoid that possibility. If you wanted to make one of those with a locking detent on the outside, it would have to be much thicker.
My understanding is that the patent is only on that particular, reversible, nested-socket design. As you point out, magnetic connectors have lots and lots of prior art.
They’re just expensive to build compared to the old style ones, and most laptops have razor-thin margins, so they don’t bother or won’t do it for cost reasons. The Microsoft Surface, for example, is a non-Apple laptop with a magnetic connector.
Shorter cords are generally less of a trip hazard. If you the cord is shorter you’re going to keep it closer to the outlet and less people are likely to walk between it and the wall.
The reason things like toasters, blenders, mixers etc have such short cords is specifically so you don’t try to run the cord from the outlet by the counter to the kitchen table or so you don’t plug it in on one side of the sink and use the appliance on the other side of the sink. They’d much rather you kept it very close to the wall.
The problem with laptops is that they’ve replaced (to a point) desktops and because of this they end up in one spot and permanently plugged in. It’s different from 10-15 years ago when you plugged it in overnight, carried it around the house and then plugged it back in later (like we do with cell phones now*). Luckily, my laptop cord is about 10 feet long, so I’m okay there.
*Speaking of short cords, my cell phone cord is about 18 inches long. It’s literally not long enough to plug it in and get it to my night stand directly above the outlet. A few days later I got a USB extension from Amazon, but until then I had to leave it on the floor to charge.
My Toshibas and Acers have the common concentric cylindrical plug, and I do not find that they casually become unlpugged so easily. Of course, I tend to leave quite a bit of slack close to the computer, precisely so I can move it – looking at the computer I’m using right now I’d say there’s about a whole foot’s (30cm) worth of extra cord lying looped on the countertop. If I move the computer I uncoil that cord with no loss of contact. (And on top of that my power settings are such that if I do yank the plug, the automatic screen dimming gives me a hint)
Any specific person that is [DEL]blamed[/DEL] credited for this design?
