Apple 5W USB-A Charger (A1385) on a MacBook Air: Measured
The little 5W cube that shipped with iPhones for years, measured against a MacBook Air M5: 4.6 W delivered, and this time the charger itself is the limit - not the Mac.
The Apple 5W USB power adapter (model A1385) is the small white cube that shipped in iPhone boxes for the better part of a decade. Tested against a MacBook Air M5 with a low battery, per the methodology.
The numbers
| Rated | 5 W |
| Offered | ~5 W (5 V up to 1 A) |
| Negotiated | 5 V, USB default |
| Live draw | 4.6 W (4.9 V at 0.93 A) |
Profile menu: one entry - ~5 W (5 V up to 1 A). That’s the whole list.
What’s limiting it
Nothing on the Mac’s side, for once. There’s no fast-charging profile here of any kind - no USB Power Delivery, no legacy Apple 2.4-amp signaling worth speaking of at this size. It’s a plain 5-volt, 1-amp USB port, and the 1-amp output stage of the charger itself is the cap. The Mac simply draws what’s available.
That makes this the baseline of the whole series: roughly as slow as charging a laptop can get. It’s genuinely impressive that macOS bothers to charge from it at all - it will, it’s just a very patient way to top up.
The higher-wattage siblings of this brick behave differently - the 10W and 12W adapters run into a negotiation ceiling rather than a hardware one.
No longer sold
Apple stopped selling this cube some time ago, and it was never intended to charge a laptop in the first place.
If you want a current Apple adapter, the 40W Dynamic Power Adapter (60W Max) is the modern compact option. It is far more capable than this one - enough to charge a MacBook Air at a genuinely useful rate rather than merely holding it steady.
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