I'm curious to how much hardware support goes into this, since most Apple machines are designed to not be support friendly (eg. non-replaceable and/or difficult to replace normal wear-n-tear components).

> routinely break the charging port on the computer if they get yanked on too much

Yes, most laptops have this issue, although it's not nearly as common with modern laptops as it used to be. However, I contest that's a design fault in the laptop, not the charger.

> which is of course far more expensive to replace than a new charger

Not always true.[1][2] DC jacks can often be bought for less than $5 online, and then it's just labor to solder it into place. A search online turns out quite a few services for $75 inclusive of the DC jack cost (your local repair shop probably does it even cheaper now, since no shipping involved, etc). Apple's cheapest adapter with magsafe cable on it is $79. A Thinkpad charger will only run you $59.99.[3]

> You're bitching a lot about my evidence being anecdotal because it's only based on hundreds of chargers, and you're right, but your evidence appears to be based on, um, a single Dell charger that you think is awesome. That seems pretty weak.

It's difficult to comment on this without resorting to some sort of "fanboy" argument.

> I think it's stupid and a step backwards and I wish they had retained MagSafe on that model.

I think we both agree on this. Worse off, if that single port breaks, you now cannot charge your laptop, nor use any peripherals (and a peripheral is more likely to break that USB port than the charger in my experience - such as a USB thumb drive hanging out and someone smacks it on accident). Even worse off, that port isn't easily repairable, so it's back to apple (who will replace the entire motherboard as their "fix", or if it's out of warranty, it's time to buy a new laptop).

[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC461LL/A/apple-60w-magsaf...

[2] http://repairmydcjack.com/

[3] http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...