News JVTech Smartphones: what manufacturers are hiding from you about fast charging, absolute chaos with no real solution?
Published on 03/21/2023 at 06:40
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If it has become a selling point for smartphones of all ranges in recent years, the fast charging of mobile terminals raises real questions. And this is not necessarily to the benefit of consumers.
Fast charging has become a must-have feature of today’s smartphones. It allows you to quickly recharge the phone’s battery, which is an obvious comfort in everyday life: with a smartphone capable of supporting fast charging of 80W, 100W, 240W or even 300W recently at Xiaomi a mobile terminal can pass from 0 to 100% battery in just a few minutes.
But with great loading power comes great responsibility. Because if fast charging is a selling point for many smartphones from the mid-range, the fact that this feature has become essential in the technical sheets of mobiles is not without consequence. And that poses some problems.
Fast charging is not a single protocol
The main problem with fast charging comes from the fact that it does not benefit from a unified protocol. Currently, each smartphone manufacturer is developing its own fast charging system: VOOC and Super VOOC at OPPO, Super Dart and Ultra Dart at Realme, Super Charge at Huawei, TurboPower at Motorola, Quick Charge 2.0 at Qualcomm, Pump Express at MediaTek, Hypercharge at Xiaomi or Adaptive Charge at Samsungeveryone interprets fast charging in their own way.
Xiaomi breaks fast charging records
It means that if you have two smartphones at home of different brands that are compatible with fast charging at 120W, you probably won’t be able to use a single mains charger to benefit from this advantage on both devices. You will need a charger of each brand. But today, mains chargers are becoming increasingly rare in smartphone boxes : you must therefore buy the accessory separately. Hello puzzler. And this is not necessarily limited to the charger itself: sometimes even the cable must be proprietary, even if it is at first sight a standard USB-C connection.
What to create a real confusion in the mind of the consumer, which must constantly checkout to take advantage of the fast charge promised by the manufacturer. And that, we do not always know when we change our smartphone.
Even smartphones with the same protocol are not on par
The solution to the problem seems to be simple: use a unified protocol for fast charging. But in practice, this is not obvious either. The USB Power Delivery protocol could be used by different manufacturers : it offers to charge up to 140, 180 and 240 Watts thanks to fixed voltages of 28, 36 and 48 Volts. In theory, using a Power Delivery charger instead of a specific brand charger should therefore provide a decent charge.
More in practice, even if you have a 120W USB Power Delivery charger and your smartphone is compatible with 120W fast charging, it does not mean that you will benefit from 120W charging. For what ? Because many smartphones and chargers sold today support le PPS (Programmable Power Supply).
PPS technology enables charger manufacturers to change the amount of power that is sent to a phone more accurately and efficiently, which reduces the heat generated during charging. In the same way, Power Delivery also allows this charging flexibility, allowing manufacturers to limit maximum power levelseven with a compatible charger, unless the specific brand charger is used.
In other words, even with a “universal” charger supposed to be able to replace those of the manufacturers, limitations exist, which tends to prove that a unified protocol is not relevant. The presence of USB-C in all cases proves to be misleading since ultimately, it is the manufacturers who retain control… And that’s a bad point in favor of fast charging that is really accessible to everyone.
