Problems with Apple’s chargers
The ironic thing about the Apple Macbook charger is that despite its complexity and attention to detail, it’s not a reliable charger.
When I told people I was doing a charger teardown, I rapidly collected a pile of broken chargers from people who had failed chargers.
The charger cable is rather flimsy, leading to a class action lawsuit stating that the power adapter dangerously frays, sparks and prematurely fails to work.
Apple provides detailed instructions on how to avoid damaging the wire, but a stronger cable would be a better solution.
The result is reviews on the Apple website give the charger a dismal 1.5 out of 5 stars.
Burn mark inside an 85W Apple Macbook power supply that failed.
Macbook chargers also fail due to internal problems.
The photos above and below show burn marks inside a failed Apple charger from my collection.[18]
I can’t tell exactly what went wrong, but something caused a short circuit that burnt up a few components. (The white gunk in the photo is insulating silicone used to mount the board.)
Burn marks inside an Apple Macbook charger that malfunctioned.
Why Apple’s chargers are so expensive
As you can see, the genuine Apple charger has a much more advanced design than the imitation charger and includes more safety features. However, the genuine charger costs $65 more and I doubt the additional components cost more than $10 to $15[19]. Most of the cost of the charger goes into the healthy profit margin that Apple has on their products. Apple has an estimated 45% profit margin on iPhones[20]
and chargers are probably even more profitable.
Despite this, I don’t recommend saving money with a cheap eBay charger due to the safety risk.
