Flying, MacBooks and Power Adapters
As time goes by, more and more airlines are providing “Empower” outlets at each seat for travelers who want to avoid draining their laptops’ batteries on ultra-long flights. A stack of DVD’s and some sound-canceling headphones can make those long, long flights a lot more tolerable!
If you have a Powerbook or a white iBook, you can get an airline adapter nice and cheap…
As of today, the final piece of the “Traveling with a MacBook or MacBook Pro Laptop” puzzle has arrived:
Apple’s new “Magsafe Airline Power Adapter” has been annoyingly late in arriving for many of my world-traveling clients. Apple owns the patent on the magnetic power-plug on the newer MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, so there has been a decided lack of cool, third-party power adapters for frequent travelers. These laptops first shipped in FEBRUARY 2006, for goodness’ sake!
Being a new, modern and hyper-powerful computer, the MacBook Pro is a power-greedy device, which is why the 85-watt power adapter that came with it is so big and heavy. The airlines are only providing 75 watts per seat, (as I vaguely recall), so the new adapter will only power the laptop, and will NOT charge the battery as long the laptop is operating.
You’re still better-off than somebody who buys a high-end Windows laptop, though - A few recent Sony Vaio laptops can draw 135 watts!
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By the way - If you order one of these adapters using the link given above, and type “AAO71743″ in the “Enter Agent Code:” area on the final “Verify your order” page, then I’ll get extra Bonus Points from Apple, and you’ll earn my endless gratitude!
October 24th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Not all seats on all planes have powerports, so go to the Airline Seat Guru and see which seats have power outlets on the plane you\’re flying before you reserve your seat.