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How Much Power Do Common Devices Consume?

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Electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets are almost like extensions of our own bodies these days; they are borderline necessities for many. The frequent use of these items means that batteries are drained at light speed and need to be recharged often. Not all devices consume power at the same rate when plugged in, however, and it’s hyper-smart to know what wattages your devices require. Why? Because if you plug your laptop into a charger that can’t handle the wattage, it won’t properly charge. And if you regularly use an overly powerful charger to juice-up your smartphone, you could be seriously damaging the life of your battery long term.

When comparing the wattage consumption of common electronic devices, smartphones across the board generally remain consistent, with an intake of about 5 watts. The newest iPhone 6 and 6+ seem to be the exceptions to the rule, consuming more than double the typical smartphone wattage absorption at 12 watts. 12 watts my not seem too excessive for a smartphone until you consider that most tablets on the market today consume only 10 – 12 watts.

Laptops on the other hand eat up much more power than their down-sized counterparts. The average 14-15 inch laptop will ordinarily take up 60 watts to establish a full charge. This number does tend to fluctuate when comparing between different models though. Laptops such as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook can suck up all of 50 watts while charging, whereas a Macbook Pro hogs up about 70 watts. These numbers are still quite modest when compared to a desktop computer, which consumes up to a whopping 300 watts.

Aside from these web-enabled devices, other household appliances that are used on a regular basis were actually found to use a surprising amount of energy in comparison. Behemoth appliances such as air conditioners obviously require a large amount of power to be run, occupying a stunning 1200 watts. What’s more illuminating is that utilizing a microwave oven consumes even larger amounts of electricity at 1500 watts for operation. Other shocking results show that 42’ plasma televisions require about 200 watts for use (seems like it should be more, no?), while brewing the morning Joe takes up 750 watts from the coffee maker. For that amount of power, the coffee can just be skipped and one can head right to playing video games, whose consoles only require about 100 watts to run.

Want a charger that knows exactly what wattage your device needs to charge? Of course you do. Check out Zolt’s 3 in 1 smart charger today at GoZolt.com.