V-Flyer

Evening all,

I'm travelling to SFO in J later on this month and am investigating power options for my late 2014 Macbook Pro 15.

From what I understand, there isn't enough power in the Empower sockets on the aircraft to power the machine (I know it's wouldn't charge, that's against policy anyway), and Apple have discontinued their Empower to Magsafe adapter (not that it would have worked anyway, if the port does not supply enough power to keep the computer alive).

Does anyone have any practical experience at powering their laptops through Empower and does anyone have any recommendations for inverters that I might want to consider buying?

Thanks

If it won't charge the issue is most likely the wattage that the port on the airplane provides. This likely can't be corrected in a safe manner by an interver or voltage converter.

I would suggest purchasing an external battery that you can pre charge beforehand, plug your MacBook charger into, and drain as a battery. You can get ones with multiple ports to charge your phone as well via USB. I have one for my newest Ultrabook. Adds more juice than the built in battery.

I use Empower on the A346s and 747s all the time with my MacBook Air - I do even get a slow charge. Does the Pro require that much more oomph?

slinky09 wrote:I use Empower on the A346s and 747s all the time with my MacBook Air - I do even get a slow charge. Does the Pro require that much more oomph?

big difference in power between a macbook air & macbook pro

There's another idea though. You could buy the 45W MacBook Air charger and use that. It does indeed power a MacBook Pro and while it may be not recommended for the battery and might not even keep you in the positive range of charge, it would be better than nothing.

I use a windows laptop all the time in UC and it not only runs but also slow charges. Sometimes it cuts out if gets warm, but other than that all ok

even a lower power charger will still get some power into the mbp, which can extend runtime considerably

turn off unneeded features (bluetooth, wifi), configure energy saving, close applications you're not using and avoid doing things that need a lot of oomph

sungod wrote:turn off unneeded features (bluetooth, wifi), configure energy saving, close applications you're not using and avoid doing things that need a lot of oomph

Also dim the display backlight - that makes a huge difference to power consumption. My Macbook Air is perfectly useable with the screen backlight on 50%.

Whilst I always have my MagSafe / EmPower [depending on aircraft] adapter with me, I've never needed to plug it in in-flight yet as the battery like on the Macbook Air is so good.

I use a MacBook Pro and I've been able to get some charge with the empower

Thanks for everyone's help. I now need to weigh up whether I buy an Empower adapter or try and borrow one. Am I right in thinking that they aren't regularly carried on board by Virgin?

Ive used my empower with a macbook pro before and it worked fine on VS.

If i can find it (haven't used it for a while) you're welcome to borrow it.

Thanks for the lending offer Chumba, but I think it may be more practical for me to buy one. I've just had a conversation with Apple who confirm they don't make a suitable adapter for my model of MBP, but I can use a older one and buy a Magsafe to Magsafe2 converter.

How nice of them!

When I moved from a MacBook to my MacBook Air, I did just that and purchased the magsafe2 adapter which stays attached to my Apple EmPower airline power cable.

hmvs_dog wrote:Thanks for everyone's help. I now need to weigh up whether I buy an Empower adapter or try and borrow one. Am I right in thinking that they aren't regularly carried on board by Virgin?

They sometimes carry them, but then even more often than not they don't work.