Unpopular opinion: most 'fast charging' claims are a straight up lie

I was at a coffee shop in Austin last Wednesday and overheard some guy bragging how his phone charges from 0 to full in 15 minutes. I called him out because I tested my own '65W' charger with a USB meter and it only hit 45W for maybe 2 minutes before dropping to 20W. These companies slap numbers on the box that are technically possible in a perfect lab at room temp. Real world use with the screen on or a case on? Forget it. Has anyone else actually measured their charging speeds with one of those little inline power meters?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_susan8d ago

Used to totally buy into the hype around those big watt numbers, but your meter test totally changed my mind. I grabbed a cheap inline meter off Amazon and watched my "80W" charger barely hit 40W with the screen on. Makes you realize most of those speed claims are for a few seconds in a perfect setup, not how we actually use our phones.

karenb978d ago

My 65W OnePlus charger barely hit 38W when I tested it with a meter from Amazon. The screen has to be off and the phone has to be nearly dead for it to even get close to the advertised speed. @the_susan is right about those big numbers being for a few seconds in a perfect setup. I stopped caring about peak watt ratings after that and just look at how long it takes to charge from 20% to 80% with normal use. Most of the time I just plug it in at night and use a regular 15W charger, it works fine. The fast charging is just marketing fluff for people who stare at their battery percentage all day.