Not all smartphone changes have tangible benefits, but the trend toward faster charging is a genuinely great one.
The best phones today can do more than ever, with more numbers across a variety of specs and features, promising a better experience than before. There are devices with three, four, and even five cameras. Storage goes up to 1TB, RAM up to 16GB, displays are hitting 120Hz and beyond. While all these features are nice to have though, there’s one numerical trend in particular that I’ve been watching with great interest – the ever-increasing ceiling of fast charging.
Though rapid charging was once defined as 18W, 22W, or even 30W, many smartphones coming out now claim to be able to charge your phone as much as eight to ten times faster than the median of the numbers given above. It’s a feature that’s limited to Android phones for the moment, and it’s one of the few new features I’ve seen in recent years that goes beyond gimmickry to be truly useful.Death to battery anxiety
Some of the best Android phones I’ve used this year have been competing for the title of the ‘fastest-charging phone’. Whether it’s the Realme GT 3 – which made waves for its astounding 240W speeds, the Vivo X90 Pro or the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, Android brands are in a race to the bottom – in the best way possible – by reducing the time it takes you to refill your phone.
Battery anxiety has always been one of the most irritating, yet inevitable parts of smartphone ownership. As your phone gains functionality, its power demands rise; just as a bodybuilder requires more and more food to maintain their mass. Those bright, speedy displays, increasingly capable cameras, AI features, and more all need additional power to work. Using larger and larger batteries also means that your phone needs to spend more time on the charger, even with newer hardware allowing for greater efficiency and thus greater performance-per-watt.
With the more mainstream forms of fast charging, Google’s Pixel 7 Pro can take up to two hours to charge its 5,000mAh battery from empty to full, as will the Pixel 6 Pro.
