Current battery technology is reaching its physical limits and the much-anticipated revolutionary solutions are still not quite there yet. So what does the Quick Charge 4+ technology bring to the table? Quick Charge 4+ aims to deliver fast real-time smartphone charging with a cable. Find out what improvements you can expect and a few tips on how to charge your mobile phone correctly below.
Technology always marches on, and battery charging has been in dire need of some serious change for quite a while already. In the last several years, manufacturers have managed to come up with only minor improvements. For example, it was only in 2017 that Apple finally caught up with the competition by integrating wireless charging using the Qi standard with its iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. With tens of millions of iPhones sold, it will definitely help wireless charging technology to spread faster. It’s a comfortable solution, but with a glaring downside—wireless charging is an excruciatingly slow process. And this is exactly why Quick Charge technology is so exciting.
Quick Charge 4+ is technology that greatly speeds up the entire process of charging smart devices. Qualcomm has skilfully followed the 2016 launch of the Snapdragon 835 platform, which included Quick Charge 4 for the first time ever. Quick Charge 4 was able to charge the phone from scratch to 50% in just 15 minutes. Quick Charge 4+ promises to be 15% faster and 30% more efficient, which will also reduce the temperature inside the phone during charging. This is a crucial factor if you want your phone to work well for many years to come. Quick Charge 4+ eliminates unnecessary overheating, and if coupled with a faulty design, it can completely destroy a phone’s battery. As for the consequences, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco and its exploding batteries are unlikely to be forgotten any time soon.
Now we are slowly getting to the biggest modern problem of fast charging technology. Aside from a modern smartphone equipped with the Snapdragon 835 chipset, you also need a special quick charger. Manufacturers are there to make money first and foremost, so unsurprisingly, quick chargers are rarely included in the accessories you get when purchasing a phone. Apple's latest generation of iPhones supports fast charging, which is great, but you still have to buy the charger separately.
Despite all this, purchasing an extra fast charger can be very much worth it. In tests under laboratory conditions, charging a standard 3000mAh battery to 70% of its capacity can easily take 3 hours. With a more advanced Quick Charge 3 fast charger, you get there in just 30 minutes. Quick Charge 4+ thus shortens this time even further.
It may sound like an insultingly trivial question, but it’s not. There are several widespread myths about how to charge mobile phones, which largely stem from the general ignorance of how modern batteries work. Here are a few basic tips to ensure that the Li-Ion or Li-Pol batteries in your phone will remain working their best.
Unfortunately, here is the real problem with the new generation of this technology. Due to hardware changes, existing devices with Quick Charge 4 cannot be upgraded to support the new charging standard. In order words, Quick Charge 4+ will be exclusive to smartphones based on the Snapdragon 835 chipset (or newer). There isn't a lack of phones to choose from—ZTE Nubia Z17 and Samsung Galaxy S9 are already available and a number of other phones with Quick Charge 4+ support are expected to arrive in Q1 2018. Along with the main devices, compatible quick chargers and power banks will be soon follow, since Quick Charge 4+ technology has turned quite a few heads at CES 2018.