The ability to charge your phone or tablet as fast as possible is something that most smartphone users look for. Why?
Well, there’s a vast difference between scrambling to find the nearest power outlet or cafe and being able to use your phone for hours without having to be stuck to a power outlet. This is where fast charging comes into play.
The concept of fast charging is becoming more and more popular over the last few years. Fast charging allows you to charge your device in just a fraction of the tilt time it takes to have it down the traditional way.
Today, nearly every other flagship phone company offers the fast charging feature, and some of them also have numbers, as to how many percent of your battery will be charged up in less than an hour.
That said, not all products offer fast charging, and not every charger supports the different fast charging standards. That is why, in this article, we’ll be having everything you need to know about fast charging.
How Does Fast Charging Work?
The first thing you should be aware of is how the charge is measured. Amperage and voltage are used to measure the output of a charge.
Amperage/current is the total amount of power flowing the connected device is getting through its battery. Whereas, voltage measures how strong the electric current is. Now, if you want to measure the total amount of power, you’ll need to multiply the voltage with the same page, which will then give you the total wattage.
A lot of manufacturers tend to alter the voltage or boost the total amperage, just so the device charges faster. Basically, this increases the total amount of energy needed to charge a device, but in the shortest possible duration.
For instance, a typical USB 3.0 port offers an output charge level of 5V/1A for devices that need little energy to recharge, such as wearables. Most other devices can easily handle an output level of 5V/2.4A.
Now, when it comes to fast charging, the manufacturer will bump the voltage to 9V and beyond, or increase the amperage level. However, it’s important that you know that your device will only consume the amount of power its charging circuit can handle.
What Are the Various Fast Charging Standards?
There are various fast charging standards out there, but not every one of them works best for your devices. It not only depends on the type of phone you’re using, but its charger, and the standard it can support as well.
Let’s look at the different types of standards below:
USB Charging
Today, almost every mobile phone has a USB charging cable, and this includes Apple’s iPhone’s lightning cables as well. Apple started supporting fast charging after its iPhone 8 launch.
If you’re still using your previous iPhone’s adapter, which most of us still do, you’ll only be getting 5W of power. Hence, if you were to use the latest power adapter, you’ll be getting much more power.
Apple claims that through its USB Power Delivery, you’ll notice a 50% increase when it comes to your battery life, and in less than an hour. That said, you need to use an 18W power adapter that has a USB-C-to-Lightning cable. Apple does, however, sell a much higher USB-C Power Adapter for its MacBook.
There’s no concrete evidence that it will offer a much more fast-charging option.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is the charging chipset used for most flagship Android devices. In fact, the latest Android devices have built-in compatibility with this fast charging standard. Moreover, the latest standard offers a maximum charging output level of 100W.
In fact, all Motorola smartphones that have TurboPower also offer Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0.
OnePlus Warp Charge
OnePlus used a different fast charging technology – Warp Charge. It isn’t only licensed from Oppo’s Vooc but works in the same way. It boosts the power outlet to as high as 65W with Warp Change in its OnePlus 10 Pro.
Now, with this kind of charging speed, you can have your phone fully charged in slightly less than 40 mins. However, in comparison to the new OnePlus phone models, older ones still use the Dash Charge, which only supports a max of 20W charging.
Oppo Super Vooc Charging
Vooc is Oppo’s exclusive fast charging standard. Oppo has been an industry leader when it comes to fast charging technology. In addition, it holds the fastest charging speed record of 240W and has the ability to charge a 4,500mAH battery in only nine minutes.
Final Thoughts
Fast charging has become a necessity today, because we tend to use our smartphones for everything from work to entertainment, for which you need fast enough internet, such as AT&T Internet. Therefore, it’s important that you know how fast charging works, and its different standards.