By Our friends at Qualcomm published a blog post letting us know why we might be noticing some relatively fast charging times in several smartphones lately. Well, apparently, it’s not magic like I originally thought (my dreams of being able to tap into my inner David Blaine will have to be put on hold). Instead, it’s due to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 1.0, a technology the company gained access to when it acquired Summit Microelectronics last summer.
Quick Charge 1.0 technology embedded into the PMIC — or power management integrated circuit — of Qualcomm’s latest chipsets. Quick Charge allows Qualcomm to reduce the charging time by up to 40% without needing new charging cables or USB ports. Qualcomm says “any phone or tablet’s charging port can be enabled with Quick Charge.” In fact, some devices are already benefiting, such as the Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One S, HTC DROID DNA, Nexus 4 and more.
Battery life is something we’re always hoping is improved over time as devices become more advanced and power hungry, so we’re glad to see Qualcomm putting a big focus on that for the future. The latest S4 chipsets have already made very exceptional strides in power consumption, so Qualcomm feels like the other side of the battery equation — the juice coming from the wall outlet — deserves some attention.
That said, the chipset vendor says it isn’t even close to being done as the company will have more exciting battery news for us on its blog next week. We imagine these announcements will come just in time for Mobile World Congress, so we’ll be keeping a very close eye on Qualcomm to see what, exactly, is in store. Be sure to circle back here for the latest on all of that as we look to cover every drip of exciting news from here until the end of times. Look below for a list of devices which currently support Quick Charge 1.0.
Acer
Cloudmobile S500
Asus
Padfone
Casio
G’zOne TYPE-L CAL21
Medias X N-07D
MEDIAS U N-02E
MEDIAS U N-02E ONE PIECE
Disney Mobile on docomo N-03E
MEDIAS TAB UL N-08D
Fujitsu
Arrows A 101F
Arrows ef FJL21
Regza Phone T-02D
ARROWS Kiss F-03E
HTC
8X
8S
Droid DNA
Evo 4G LTE
One S
One VX
One SV
HTC J butterfly HTL21
Huawei
Ascend HW-01E
Stream
Kyocera
Digno S KYL21
LG
Escape
Mach
Motion 4G
Nexus 4
Optimus G
Optimus it
Optimus Vu 2
Spectrum 2
Optimus Regard
Optimus LIFE L-02E
Motorola
Atrix HD LTE
Droid RAZR HD
Droid RAZR M
Electrify M
Photon Q 4G LTE
Droid RAZR Maxx HD
Nokia
Lumia 820
Lumia 920
Lumia 822
Lumia 920T
Panasonic
Eluga Power P-07D
Pantech
Flex
Vega PTL21
Vega Racer 2 LTE
Samsung
Galaxy Express
Galaxy Rugby Pro
Galaxy S Relay 4G
Galaxy S III
Galaxy S III Progre
Galaxy Victory 4G
Ativ S
Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (LTE)
Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (LTE)
Galaxy Tab 7.7 Plus
Sharp
Aquos Phone Series
Aquos Phone Serie SHL21
Aquos Phone si SH-01E
Aquos Phone sv SH-10D
Aquos Phone Xx 106SH
Aquos Phone Zeta
Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E
SH-01E Vivienne Westwood
PANTONE 6 200SH
AQUOS PAD SHT21
Sony
Xperia AX SO-01E
Xperia GX SO-04
Xperia SX SO-05D
Xperia TL
Xperia T
Xperia VL SOL21
Xiaomi
MI2
Mi2
ZTE
Grand X LTE
Flash
I’ve noticed how much faster than my old phone the Nexus 4 seems to charge.
BTW, here’s the link to the Qualcomm blog post: http://www.qualcomm.com/media/blog/2013/02/14/qualcomm-quick-charge-10-less-time-charging-more-time-doing
Likely the S4 will not have a Qualcomm proccessor and therefore won’t be able to take advantage of this quick charge tech. Samsung is going to use it’s Exynos 5.
My USB 3.0 output on my laptop allows for higher output quick charge. interesting…
my t-mobile htc one s takes 2 hours to charge, not exactly fast
Exactly, as I was reading this I was like “Really?” I have an evo lte and from dead to a full charge takes forever. I also have a gnex with an extended battery and that charges twice as fast as me evo.
My Verizon GS3 took less than an hour to get from 48% to full while running CyanogenMods built it mobile hotspot to my laptop.
Same here… not exactly the fastest charging speeds, but decent enough… I’ve went from empty to full between 1-2 hrs (I think it was closer to 1 hour and 20 mins)
Even with a Quick Charge enabled device, the charger would also have to support the higher charging rate. I’m sure some (if not all) of the above devices come with such a charger, but the charger included with a device is often not the only charger people use.
The blog post explicitly says “no new charger needed”…
I imagine he means the output of your charger: 500ma vs 1a or 2a chargers. If your charger only puts out a trickle, your phone won’t charge fast no matter what new fangled technology they come up with. I assume by not needing a new charger it means the charger itself doesn’t need the new tech.
Based on the article, it seems to suggest that devices with Quick Charge have an efficiency gain. So a Quick Charge device on a 500ma wall wart would charge faster than a similar, non-Quick Charge device on the same wall wart.
That’s correct. No “new” charger needed but if you read between the lines there it’s doubtful that an old charger with a much slower charging rate (like something that was built on USB 1.0 tech) would not benefit from this. The charger your device came with would, yes, and by that token you don’t need to buy a new one as long as you keep using that one. Buy buy a new one that isn’t up to snuff and you might lose your benefits.
my s3 exynos versions chargeswithin 3 hours from almost dead(5%) to full charge so how is this special?…also would love to know which phone takes 4 hours or more to charge cause that is just too long
qualcomm = snapdragon or us variants of the s III.
A lot of it has to do with what the battery to be honest..
they aint lying. can charge my phone from 5% to full in 2 hours.