Whisky-dave
The part that plugs into the wall is the power supply unit or PSU and adapter combined, because it adapts the mains power to DC that the laptop uses to run the laptop and charge the battery. Some call them power bricks.

nospam
so you agree that it's called a power supply, although it does have other names too.

Eric Stevens
Like 'battery charger'.

nospam
nope.

a battery charger does just that, charge batteries, usually removing the battery from the device and inserting them into the charger.

that's different than a power supply, which powers the device and which may also charge a battery while the battery is still in the device.

Eric Stevens
THat's strange. I run my phone, iPad, Kindle etc off their internal batteries all the time. Every now and then I connect them to the power block

to 'charge the batteries'. No matter what you call them, I generally call them 'chargers' - as in "Where is the charger for the iPad?".