Apple‘s MacBook Neo doesn’t officially support fast charging, which is a bummer. With a 20W charging adapter in the box (except in Europe; more on that later), the charging times can be rather long.
There’s good news for prospective buyers, though: If you use a more powerful charging adapter, the MacBook Neo will charge significantly faster.
Macworld put this to the test by charging the MacBook Neo for 30 minutes with Apple’s 20W USB-C power adapter, and with a 96W power adapter. When charged with the more powerful adapter, MacBook Neo got 30 percent battery life, as opposed to just 15 percent it got with the weaker, 20W brick.
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So why doesn’t Apple list the MacBook Neo as having fast charging? It may have to do a bit with marketing, as the company might not want the Neo to cannibalize MacBook Air sales too much. Also, Apple defines fast charging as getting up to 50 percent of battery life in half an hour, which the Neo isn’t capable of with any charger.
Still, this is great news, as it means that using a more powerful power adapter will get the Neo charged significantly faster. Note that the Neo cannot charge at a rate faster than about 24 watts, so it doesn’t make sense to go overboard with a super-powerful charger.
So what about users in Europe? Well, Apple ships the Neo without a charger in the box (partially due to European Union regulations, and partially because it’s simply cheaper for Apple to do so). This means that buyers in the EU should probably opt for something a bit more powerful than a 20W power adapter to get the most of their MacBook Neo.
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