‘Smallest laptop charger yet’ coming in November for $119

The company FINsix has started a Kickstarter campaign for the early sales of the Dart; according to the company, “the smallest and lightest laptop adapter yet.” Those who support the project can get the charger in the summer for $79. The final price will be $119.

A model of the Dart from the first edition of 1000 pieces is available for pre-order for $79 and will be available in the summer. For 10 dollars more, there is already a version that will be released in November, but the final retail price will be $ 119, converted to 86 euros. FINsix only delivers in the US. If you want the Dart and don’t live in the US, you have to wait until March 2015 and use a Dart Plus adapter. That bundle will cost $130.

MacBook owners also pay more. The Dart for MacBook will be available to early buyers for $148 in December. After that first edition of 500 pieces, a model from a production round of 1500 is still available for 168 dollars. FINsix explains the additional cost with the fact that the company has to purchase a completely new MacBook adapter for its own variant.

The Dart is four times smaller and six times lighter than a typical laptop power supply, according to the maker. The power supply is based on a technique developed at MIT that uses vhf, between 30MHz and 300MHz, for the inverter. The higher the frequency, the smaller the adapter can be, but until now the efficiency of small inverters operating at high frequencies has been low. The researchers at MIT and FINsix have overcome this problem by reusing the energy normally lost in the adapter. The power is a maximum of 65W.