What is the difference between these two Dell AC Adapters chargers?/?
Which one of these two Dell AC Adapters (chargers) is more powerful:
1) PA-10 Family, maxima output power: 90W
2) PA-12 Family, 65W AC Adapter
Also, what is the difference in power and/or speed between the two adapters? Is it better to have a stronger powered one, or not?
see laptops come with different types of batteries
most of the laptops have a 3 cell(net top) to 6 cell (normal laptops)
these laptop charge with the 65W adapters
they may damage using 90W adapters
(actually batteries get heated when they are charged so a low cell battery when charged With higher power Adaptor may get heated faster therefore reducing its life)
90W Adaptor is good if your laptop have a 6 cell or above battery
even dell gives you option to upgrade the Adaptor unlike most manufacturers
the 90 W Charger will charge faster but will cost more
there are higher end laptops like the XPS series in dell
or Alienware laptops most of them come with 9 or 12 cell battery
these battery will take ages if you charge them with 65w Adaptor
so a 90W or higher rating Adaptor is recommended to use with them
see adapters have transformers and special circuits whose price increase with power rating
so they cost more with more power rating
if you are a gamer it is highly recommended for you to go for a higher rated Adaptor so that your battery charges quickly even if you are running system heavy applications because they drain more power
the real battery damage is the voltage rating of an Adaptor
the battery is supposed to be charged at certain voltage
so if you take other Adaptor for charging it could drastically reduce your battery life if its voltage rating is low
dell allows you to configure your laptops
it allows you to change the battery type in most of its laptops
like if you are buying a studio or XPS you can change standard 6 cell battery option to 9 cell or more
so you can change the laptop ac Adaptor
a 9 cell battery gives better battery backup than 6 cell
but increases the weight of laptop
If a laptop needs dell PA-12 you can use PA-10 but if a laptop needs dell PA-10 you can not use PA-12. When you use PA-12 on laptops that needs PA-10 it will give a message saying this adapter is not suitable press F1 to continue and also it gives a message stating that if you do not want to see this message press F2, but it takes long time to charge like
that and it works well without any issue.
Both the 90Watts (PA-10) and 65Watts (PA-12) Power Adapters will work for most of Dell’s recent notebooks. The PA-10/12 will work with notebooks such as 8500, 8600, M60, M70, D600, D610, 9200, 9300, 6000, 600m and 700m. It is true that the dell PA-10 ac adapter will charge the batteries faster than the PA-12 with these laptops.
Both PA10 & PA12 Chargers are used with Most Dell Latitude, Dell Inspiron, Xps, Dimension laptops and notebooks.