Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 Can Charge Your Phone in 15 Minutes
Quick Charge 5 supports fast charging up to 100W and can completely replenish a dead smartphone battery in just 15 minutes.
Qualcomm on Monday announced Quick Charge 5, the latest iteration of its fast charging platform. With speeds up to 100W, it’s the company’s most dramatic bump in charging power since it launched the Quick Charge standard in 2013, and can completely charge a phone battery in just 15 minutes.
Quick Charge 5 is four times faster than Quick Charge 4. To give you an idea of just how fast that is, Qualcomm states it can be used to charge a depleted 4,500mAh battery to 50 percent in five minutes. Or if you’re willing to wait an extra 10 minutes, it will completely recharge the battery. It’s backward compatible with will all but the original Quick Charge standard, and supports USB-C and PD technologies.
Quick Charge 5 relies on two new power management integrated circuits-SMB 1396 and SMB1398. Both support single- and dual-cell batteries and can handle voltage in excess of 20V for wired and wireless power sources.
While such a massive bump in charging speeds requires significantly more power, Quick Charge 5 is actually more efficient and runs 50 degrees cooler than its predecessor, with more than a dozen different safety measures built in.
In addition, it’s the first charging standard with Qualcomm Battery Saver and Smart ID. Battery Saver determines the best charging speed based on various conditions to minimize battery degradation, while Smart ID tests the power adapter to make sure it’s safe and providing the appropriate amount of power.
A representative for Qualcomm told PCMag the first Quick Charge 5 devices will be available in the third quarter of 2020. It will initially be available on Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 865+, and upcoming 800-series chipsets. Eventually, the company plans to incorporate the standard into its Snapdragon 600- and 700-series processors, though it has yet to announce a timeline for those chips.
Xiaomi will be the first manufacturer to release a phone with the new standard, though the number of handsets should grow quickly as new flagships are announced. While there’s currently no date for Quick Charge 5 accessories, the company says they should be available in the coming months.
Although Qualcomm’s Quick Charge platform is one of the more popular fast charging standards in the smartphone market, it’s become increasingly less common in the US compared with other parts of the world. We’ve only seen Quick Charge 4 on the LG V60 5G ThinQ, for instance, as manufacturers like Motorola and Samsung opt for their own proprietary standards.
We look forward to putting Quick Charge 5 to the test when it’s available, and seeing how it stacks up against Oppo’s recently announced 125W Flash Charge standard.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
