As you, we are more interested in real-life figures than in theoretical ones when it comes to Apple computer's power consumption.
Our pals from
Cuk have posted new tests, including one of the MacBook Pro. Roughly speaking, it is the same as the 17" G4 PowerBook's, and not so much higher than the iBook's one when running no more than the base system.
Last week, a reader from
http://www.macned.nl has published photos of the destroyed MagSafe plug of his MacBook Pro.
While he was away, the connector completely burned out while the battery was being refilled.
Photos were then submitted to
Flickr but have been removed by the author on Apple's request, and the issue is being investigated. So far this is the only registered report of such accident.
In the MagSafe system, the "female" part is located in the MBPro and is a magnet. So potentially not only the power cable part can be attracted, but any other metal-based particles.
So it is possible that such an exogenous particles could have been trapped in the MagSafe plug, and with time heated up to finally destroyed the plug.
However, the MagSafe system is a create invention, and if you work on a messy or packed office table, just quickly checked if the MagSafe of your MBPro is free of non desired particles before plugging the power cable in.
We have been reporting already several times about tips and tricks to recycle old Mac or give them a "second life".
Powerbook-fr has published photos of an iBookG3 700MHz modified into a desktop machine.
You can find many more examples of such mods on this website.
