Chinese phone makers have been leading the effort on the fast-charging technology front over the past year or two. OnePlus currently supports 30W fast-charging and Oppo has shifted from 50W SuperVOOC to 65W SuperVOOC charging — letting its sister company Realme borrow the fast-charging technology as well. These Chinese giants, including Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo are now ready to debut phones with over 100W fast-charging support. Qualcomm Quick Charge had, however, been stuck at 27W fast-charging over the past couple of years.
Before we delve into the differences and similarities, let me quickly brief you on what exactly is Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology. The American chipmaker is known for revolutionizing the fast-charging world – enabling users to charge their phones at speeds faster than 10W (5V/2A) back in 2014. It operates at high-voltage, so you don’t need to worry about the cable length or its charging capability.
Charging Speed
Let’s take a trip down memory lane before taking a look at Quick Charge 5 and Quick Charge 4+ charging speeds.
Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0 had a maximum power output of 10W, Quick Charge 2.0 bumped it to 18W (9V/ 2A), and Quick Charge 3.0 offered up to 36W (12V/ 3A) power output. And I know, you might not believe this but Qualcomm enabled up to 100W charging speeds with Quick Charge 4 back in 2016. Quick Charge 4+ brought in tow improvements to this standard with the Snapdragon 845 chipset in 2017.
This means the charger will be more prone to heating and Qualcomm has self-imposed a 40-degree Celcius temperature limit (with 98% maximum conversion efficiency) for the phone while charging via this standard.
Apart from the charging speed or voltage, I have to say that the charging time is one of those figures that can make anyone’s jaw hit the floor. Though Qualcomm doesn’t give official 0% to 100% charging time numbers for Quick Charge 4+, you will be amazed to see the performance gains.
Now, to be clear, this is the best-case scenario and phone makers will need to offer you 100W support with their next device to make this a reality. You will at least get 53W fast-charging speeds if not 100W with the use of a dual-battery configuration under Quick Charge 5 standards. Qualcomm also says that single battery phones will have a limitation and will only be charged at up to 45W.
While 100W+ charging speeds does sound like the highlight of Quick Charge 5, I will have to disagree. The benefit of phone makers switching to Quick Charge 5 will be the fact that you will be able to use any standard PD-PPS charger to quickly juice up your smartphone.
Quick Charge 5 is supported on Qualcomm’s latest flagship chipsets – the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865 Plus. The company plans to integrate this fast-charging tech into “future premium- and high-tier Snapdragon mobile platforms” as well.
