Samsung And Friends Are Rather Stubborn About Moving Towards “Modern” Charging Speeds
In this day and age, I’m not sure what qualifies as “fast charging” on a technical basis. Before, Android devices charged at a mere 5W, so anything faster than that was fast charging. If you ask me, anything above 15W is “technically” fast charging in 2024, but I think we all know better than to say the Pixel 8a with 18W has fast charging. But that’s a budget phone, right? It can be forgiven.
Let’s turn our heads towards the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, the Google Pixel 8 Pro, and the new Sony Xperia 1 VI. These three devices are the very best that their respective manufacturers have to offer. Want to know their max charging speeds? 45W, 30W, and 30W (the other two make my oft-bashed Samsung look good). On its own, you might not think that’s too bad, but it’s far from what you’d expect from phones that break the $1,000 barrier.
I’d say that most great phones these days aim for charging speeds that are at least around the 60W mark, and most of them don’t cost as much as the flagships I mentioned. The Motorola Edge (2024) gets 68W wired charging, and the OnePlus Nord CE 4 even sticks in 100W.
These “International” Brands Might Be Trying To Stay On The Safe Side
I’m going to cut these brands a little bit of slack though, because sticking to these lower charging speeds might be them trying to stay on the side of safety. Intrinsically, fast charging doesn’t pose a major risk to your battery’s health or your own safety.
However, if implemented without proper heat dissipation, it can degrade your phone’s battery a lot faster. We all know that our phones get a bit warmer when charging, so imagine how warm a device could get with 100W of power pumping through it at its peak.
Google, Sony, and Samsung are more global brands than many of the smartphone manufacturers opting for ridiculously fast charging, so it could be that these companies are trying to err on the side of caution by providing charging that’s just fast enough to be convenient and guaranteed safe at the same time. Hopefully, improvements in thermal management will let us finally see a day when Samsung breaks past the 45W mark it’s been clinging onto since the Note 10+ in 2019.
On The Other Hand, Chinese Manufacturers Like Realme Might Be Taking It Too Far; 300W?
In an interview with YouTuber The Tech Chap, Realme’s Head of Marketing, Francis Wong, let us know that Realme is currently developing fast-charging tech that hits the 300W mark. I don’t think I need to be the one to spell out how that might be more than enough. My gaming laptop charger maxes out at 150W, so double that seems bonkers for a smartphone.
Realme already holds the record for the fastest-charging smartphone with the Realme GT5 240W and the Realme GT Neo 5 240W, which (you guessed it) charge at a maximum speed of 240W when wired. According to Realme, they go from 1 to 50% in 4 minutes and to 100% in 10 minutes. Does anyone really need a phone to charge in less than 10 minutes?
Realme thinks so. I can’t guess how fast a 300W charger could juice up a phone, though that depends on the battery size, but you’d probably be looking at 6 or 7 minutes, which again, is unnecessary. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it in action though, and I’m excited to see Realme actually bring it to consumers, as excessive as I feel it is.
