16" MBP Max with small charger enough for light work, and longer battery life

[brosenz]

I have a 16" Max, when doing light work (browsing, chatting, etc.) with a fully charged battery, the power consumption is around 7-15W, I would say 20W max, any small charger can power the laptop. I am using a 50-60W Belkin charger with dual usb-c port.

Regarding battery charge, I have noticed when using the 140W charger, the battery gets hot, due to the fast charging capabilities of the 140W charger, 50% in 30min, I think that long term, the heat is bad for the battery, so I am using a 50-60W charger, that charges slower and it doesn't get the battery that hot, I am ok with longer charging times.

Any experience or thoughts out there?

 

[Mr.Blacky]

I'm sorry... You did get a 16" MacBook Pro Max for browsing, chatting, etc.?
I'm no expert, but I am pretty sure, the entry level 16" M1 Pro would be more than overqualified for those tasks.

 

[brosenz]

I'm sorry... You did get a 16" MacBook Pro Max for browsing, chatting, etc.?
I'm no expert, but I am pretty sure, the entry level 16" M1 Pro would be more than overqualified for those tasks.

Sorry, wrong statement, "when doing light activities"......

Not all the time I am doing light activities.

 

[Sanpete]

The experience of others matches yours, based on comments in this forum. Except for the battery getting hot. Haven't heard much about that, and didn't notice it myself.

You can use the 140W charger with a USB-C cable instead of the MagSafe to avoid the fastest charging mode. Fast charging slows down at around 80% so as not to over-stress the battery, but many feel as you do that slower is better.

 

[brosenz]

The experience of others matches yours, based on comments in this forum. Except for the battery getting hot. Haven't heard much about that, and didn't notice it myself.

You can use the 140W charger with a USB-C cable instead of the MagSafe to avoid the fastest charging mode. Fast charging slows down at around 80% so as not to over-stress the battery, but many feel as you do that slower is better.

Thank you, I only use Belkin as third party chargers, they are sold at Apple.com as well, I think they collaborate with Apple on some of their products.

The Wattage the charger I use changes automatically and can be dynamically detected by the MacBook Pro, confirmed by System Information.

If I only use 1 usb-c port I get 60W, if I use the second port to charge another device, I get 50W, the changes are detected by macOS without any problem.

I like this charger because, it saves me having to carry 2 chargers, with the 2 usb-c ports.

 

[Diablo360]

It’ll just take a little longer to charge if your battery is already low. i think you should be okay as long as you’re not looking to charge quickly when The battery is near depleted

 

[AmazingTechGeek]

I'm somewhat dumbfounded by this thread...you should check activity monitor and check power consumption related to wifi/bluetooth/program management. My MacBook us normally cool under light tasks unless I'm using wifi/bluetooth/streaming (which battery life is still fine, but the chassis becomes a tad warm, which is normal).

You should expect some heat every now and then, but it should be a consistent curve depending on the type of tasks.

 

[Six0Four]

I use a 30w for my 14" and works fine

 

[doboy]

I'm actually fine w/ using my 20W charger with my base 14" MBP.

 

[vivid.gear71]

you can use a fan. for example, with iStat menu, fan is kicking in whenever charging happens

 

[F23]

using my 20W iPad brick to charge my 16 inch MBP 2021. Light usage is around 12-30W so the charger was able to keep it at 100% for hours. so yes it works

 

[GoldPunch]

I am using it with ugreen 65w gan charger. no problem at all.

 

[astorre]

for light usage like you described, any phone charger can keep up with that, keep using that 50W Belkin you got

 

[Ifti]

I always keep my MacBook on my desk and plugged in to the charger, using AlDente Pro to keep the battery at 75%, and then using the same software to calibrate every so often by increasing to 100% and the draining it, before bring back to 75% again. Seems to work quite well for me.

With my current system I use the supplied power adapter. However, I have a OWC Thunderbolt 4 Dock that I will keep connected to my M1 Max [whenever it arrives!!]. That should supply constant power for my general day to day usage.

When I want to edit using FCPX I connect a second OWC ThunderBolt 4 dock, which has all my editing drives connected to it. I'm assuming this second dock will provide the extra power I may need during my editing/rendering/exporting.

I then unplug my editing drives when they are not in use, going back to the one dock with lower power.

 

[astorre]

I'm assuming this second dock will provide the extra power I may need during my editing/rendering/exporting.

your first doc already provides 96W max charging, adding multiple chargers wont affect charging speed, unless you use magsafe 3 that can have 140W instead of USB C 100W

 

[chengengaun]

A couple hours ago I observed my Max 14" total power at ~4.5W with a 1080p monitor plugged in, R sitting idle with 59GB of RAM usage, and Microsoft Office apps + Teams running, while I was drafting a document on iA Writer. Prior to that, the battery drained from 80% to 50% after 2+ hours of meeting connecting to Airtame, and with 6 hours battery life remaining. I can only dream of this with an Intel machine. So far a 30W charger is sufficient for my use case.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Yep, for light activities I've never been able to overwhelm any of my 30-60+ wattage chargers around the house and at my wife's lab. This laptop sips when it's just sitting there. On days I do ebook reading or light reading for hours, I'll be lucky to use 4-5% of battery.

A 65w (26,800 mAh) Anker battery was able to keep the laptop charged for a 2+ hour gaming streak (I did this just as a test) - and it only used about 60% battery.

I also use AlDente and keep the battery around 60-70%.