What is the smallest power adapter that works reasonably for a FW 13 Pro with a new Ultra Series 3 board?
I understand that 100W is recommended to max out the battery charging speed and avoid dipping into the battery during power spikes (though it seems that some of the current FW 13s can temporarily exceed even 100W). However, when I’m away from my PD monitor I don’t care about fast charging and unthrottled performance and I prefer using compact, light chargers that don’t block other outlets. From a pure power perspective, even a 15W charger should fill the battery in ~5h, which should be plenty for casual use on the go. Plus, the slower charging should even be advantageous for battery health from what I understand.
Are there any restrictions in terms of supported PD voltages or should any of 5/9/15/20V work to charge the FW 13 Pro?
Is there any other reason not to use a low-wattage charger for use around the house and when traveling?
Depends on what you define as reasonable but there are some extremely small 30W pd chargers and 30W will keep you above water under light to medium load. It will dip into battery a lot more than with bigger chargers though so expect a bit more battery wear and loosing battery under higher load.
If it’s anything like the existing models the voltage isn’t as much the issue as the negotiation.
Battery wear and reduced peak performance, for stationary use the size savings really are not worth it but for very compact travel they might be. You can get some extremely compact 65w bricks though.
For a “fixed” location I wouldn’t care too much about the size, but when moving around the house, coffee shops, hotels, airports, etc. there are many situations where it matters. For example, there might be multi-socket outlets where a single big charger blocks all sockets, or you can come across bad old wall-sockets where a heavy charger doesn’t stay properly attached. For example, on an outlet like this many chargers block everything, but you could probably still fit three of these.
Yes, among other things but the negotiation happening is the determining point, pure 5v with the dumb negotiation works on some frameworks and not others.
Very familiar sockets XD
Interesting coincidence I recently tested a charger just like that (same form-factor but also has an usb-a port). Performed remarkably well for it’s size.
There are also chargers with detachable cables that arguably use even less socket space. My main travel one is a very compact 100w one with a detachable c7 cable. Sure it’s about 3x the volume of that compact 30w + the cable but still not that bad.
I don’t have much to contribute to this conversation, but the only thing I’d suggest - use more reputable brands. Power bricks is not something you want to cheap out on (or use potentially sub-par product just because it is a bit smaller).
Regarding wattage.. My work is not very demanding and I do have a 74Wh powerbank that charges at 18w. It takes ~4 hours to discharge and by the end of it, I have ~25% more battery on the laptop’s 61wh (ubuntu shows 64wh) battery (I’m actively using it). It definitely dips into the battery from time to time as 18w is not always sufficient, so I assume there’s a bit of wear on the battery, but, it definitely is enough for me to work and actually charge the battery (I also like my display bright, so if you’re more conservative there, you may even get better results).
I’m on 7640u, so Ultra 3 should be even more efficient.
That is a valid point but also a tradeoff everyone has to do themselves. I wish some name brand actually made something in that form factor.
I gotta say my chinesium version (which has branding of a company that makes chargers but not that one which is very confidence inspiring XD) did survive my somewhat brutal stress testing though (5h at 20v 1.75A which is just under where it ocps) and it never dropped out and didn’t get that hot, did not expect that for how small it was. Unfortunately I can’t really test isolation or the safety stuff but the really bad stuff usually can’t take a stress test too.
Not really planning to use it with the framework but it is a neat bit of tech.
It is dipping into battery constantly then charging back up again once under some threshold. This is perfectly fine appart from a bit of extra mileage on the battery.
I have experimented with actually limiting the apu to not go above input power at all and that causes pretty massive performance reduction under about 50w(stock ec sets that limit to over 130W on ac). Modern socs are just pretty spiky. I don’t expect the pantherlake chips to be that different in that regard.
Only doing that occasionally should not be a huge deal with battery wear, and even if they are available and easy to replace.
Which brands would you consider reputable? I guess Anker, Belkin, Nekteck, UGreen as well as large electronics manufacturers such as Samsung?
The issue with compact chargers from most brands is that they appear to be designed around the US socket (type A), so when they create a Europlug version the charger becomes ~50% larger.
I’ve looked a bit more at the above chargers and it seems that those are white-label versions of products by a Shenzen company called Voltek Electronics, according to the TÜV certificate. The fact that their website is currently unavailable is indeed not very confidence inspiring…
That is a good description of the problem. To be fair the us plug does kind of lend itself to foldable designs while europlug lends itself to adding quite a lot of the electronics into the “sunk” part of the plug.
I really like the design of the swiss plug, it’s got most reasonable safety stuff, optional polarisation and optional ground while still remaining quite compact.
Somehow I can’t open that link either.
White labels not having much public facing stuff doesn’t say much about their quality, it’s literally by definition not their problem.
I can only echo: Buy from reputable band.
I would buy multiport charger, to be able to charge, phone, laptop, etc. at the same time.
I have an Anker Nano II 45W charger with AMD 7640u. My usage is very, very lightweight. I love the charger, lightweight, small. Would be even better to have a bit larger and have 2 or more ports.
yeah, some of those.. And yeah, they may not be as small.. but I’d better give up a cubic centimeter of space in my backpack than risk frying 2k laptop.
Yes, that’s where I originally came across it, it also seems to have some certifications at least.
I think for now I’ll get the new Ugreen 45W once it is locally available – that one seems fairly compact and the off-center Europlug shouldn’t block Swiss triple-outlets. The Anker 511 (Nano III) seems like the best compact option for 30W.
