When does a phone with 30W charging not charge at 30W? When it’s a Pixel 6 Pro apparently. In the run-up to the phone’s launch just 2 weeks ago it seemed that Google would finally upgrade the charging rate from a miserable 18W to 30W on the Pixel 6 Pro, but it seems that this advertised charger speed isn’t even achievable on the official 30W charger that is sold separately.
Thanks to a number of charging tests run by the folks at Android Authority using the official charger as well as popular third-party alternatives from the likes of Anker, and Elecjet, it seems that the Pixel 6 Pro is only capable of 22W wired charging, a scant 4W faster than every Pixel before it.
After using the Anker Nano II, Samsung’s 45W Travel Adapter, and an Electjet X21 Pro to charge the Pixel 6 Pro with Adaptive Battery and Adaptive Charging disabled, it was measured that the Pixel 6 Pro maxed out at 22W. Even worse, over a full charging cycle, the Pixel 6 Pro only managed an average charging rate of 13W. Which is scandalous.
With an average charging rate of just 13W, it will take around 111 minutes to charge the Pixel 6 Pro’s 5,000mAh battery from 0-100%. That 22W max charge is only achieved during the first 50%, after which it drops way down to the low single digits, as shown in the graph above.
Before everyone gets their pitchforks out to storm Google’s castle, it should be noted that nowhere in the Pixel 6 Pro’s literature (as shown above) does it state that it will charge at 30W. Indeed, it’s only mentioned that you can use Google’s 30W charger to charge the Pixel 6 Pro. Everyone, including myself, saw the 30W charger being sold by Google and assumed that it meant the Pixel 6 Pro would offer 30W charging. Sadly, it doesn’t and the Pixel 6 series is stuck at 22W at most during the first half of a full charging cycle, which is why the phone takes so long to charge.
