In the past few years, fast charging has turned out to be a boon for smartphone users. Oppo and Realme have already offered 65W SuperVOOC charging – with OnePlus also stated to offer the same – and are now planning to offer 125W charging speeds in the devices to come. In the recent past, Vivo and Xiaomi have also come up with 100W charging solutions. Now the American chipmaker, Qualcomm has come up with Quick Charge 5 technology.
Quick Charge 5 by Qualcomm is its first-ever commercially usable fast charging platform to support 100W+ charging power on a smartphone. The Quick Charge 5, the spiritual successor of the Quick Charge 4.0/4+, has brought with itself a great change in the charging speed and time department.
The charging speed of a QC5 device is four times more than that of a QC4 device, and, moreover, it is 70 percent more efficient than the previous one. According to the company, QC5 can charge a 4,500mAh battery from 0% to 50% in just 5 minutes and a full charge of the same battery will take about 15 minutes. It is quite similar to the Oppo’s 125W Super Flash Charge solution. The Quick Charge 5 works like a dual charging station wherein it splits the battery into two cells of, say, 2,250 mAh connected in series to increase their voltage. It also supports triple charge technology.
The faster charging speeds of the Quick Charge 5 has been made possible with support for 2S batteries and 20V power delivery, which means that we will witness two battery packs in most of the smartphones in the months to come. Surprisingly, Quick Charge 5 functions at 10-degrees Celsius cooler than the Quick Charge 4, even though the charging voltage is much higher. By all means, it has separate current, voltage, and temperature protections in place. QC5 adapters are also backward compatible with Quick Charge 4.0+, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, and the existing devices in the market.
Snapdragon 865+ and 865 already support Quick Charge 5 technology. In the future, all the high-tier and premium Qualcomm chipsets will house this technology. At present, Qualcomm is testing this charging solution, and it is expected to be out sometime later in 2020.
