Qualcomm has announced the newest version of its fast charging technology that will soon make its way to smartphones across the market. Called Quick Charge 5, this generation of the tech is Qualcomm’s biggest upgrade yet in terms of speed and capabilities.
Right off the bat, Qualcomm says Quick Charge 5 can get your phone from zero to 50 percent battery capacity in just five minutes. That’s in stark contrast to what the company said in 2016 with Quick Charge 4 which could give you five hours of battery life in five minutes. Also notable: that Quick Charge 5 stat is based on a battery 4,500mAh in size.
What’s more, Qualcomm says the new tech can get you from zero to 100 percent in just 15 minutes. That’s insane. So long as enough phones adopt this new standard, I can see people’s charging habits changing significantly.
Time for some nitty-gritty details. Qualcomm says Quick Charge 5 is the “first commercially viable” standard to support over 100W. It’s 70 percent more power efficient compared to Quick Charge 4 and it runs 10 degrees Celsius cooler. It supports 2S battery systems for devices that have to ship with multiple power cells (such as foldables), the existing USB Power Delivery Programmable Power Supply standard for broader device support, and the Snapdragon 865/Plus processors. These features combined, it’s easy to say manufacturers will be anxious about rolling the tech out to everyone.
Qualcomm says the first devices with Quick Charge 5 will come out in Q3 2020.
