Mac Tales

Ever wanted to use your laptop on a long-haul flight? Some airlines are steadily fitting their fleet with the em power adapter connectors for notebooks.

Having just traveled for 64 hours inairline economy class seating, I figured the investment in a magsafe empower adapter for my macbook would be a smart idea.

Apple produce the magsafe airline adapter for macbook / macbook pro, which is available from apple stores and from the apple store website.

However, I was initially dissuaded by some of the negative customer reviews on the Apple store (kudos to Apple for keeping them there), so I started to search for other third-party products.

As it happens, Apple is the only company to make an empower adapter for macbook at present, to my knowledge they haven’t granted any licenses to other manufacturers to produce magsafe magnetic power adapter products.

So, without an alternative – I bit the bullet and purchased the Apple magsafe airline power adapter from the high street (the day before my flight).

The adapter comes with two connectors, an em power (airline) adapter, and a 12v car cigarette lighter power adapter. The power cord is long enough to reach across your lap if you are seated with the empower socket on your right hand side (as mine was).

It is important to note that the empower adapter does not charge your macbook in-flight, but it does allow it to operate without draining the battery. It is therefore a good idea to start your trip with a full charge in case you want to take advantage of the free WiFi services now offered in many airports.

I flew economy class, Cathay Pacific from Sydney to London via Hong Kong. An both legs the seats were equipped with empower connectors, although the hostess on the first leg didn’t know about them. You can check which airlines offer empower over at seatguru.com.

Cathay Pacific advertise empower connector as available in economy class on a shared basis. What this actually means is that they provide one connector for every two seats. The connectors themselves are not obvious, they are below the seats and in the middle, you can identify them (if it’s dark) by a small green LED denoting their presence.

The power worked faultlessly throughout the flight, which allowed me to do a bit of work and watch a couple of movies on a much better screen than those provided in the seat backs.

One complaint that was consistently expressed in the apple.com reviews, was that the cigarette lighter connector does not fit securely over the airline adapter. I’m not sure if Apple have addressed this issue, but I can say that the adapter I have fits snugly on with a reassuring snap. I would have to be quite neglectful to leave the cigarette lighter adapter behind somewhere.

In summary, this product allowed me to use my macbook as much as I wished, on this rather long journey. It is well made, and in true Apple form - a well designed product. I can’t think of any obvious way that Apple could have designed this product any better. Highly recommended for air travelers.