I love Qi charging... bought a 10W Anker Qi charger and it has been great. It's not life changing or a necessity, and I still use the microUSB port when I travel, but at home it's nice to just plop it on the mat when I go to sleep.
You may have to look up from your little screen to acknowledge the world around you. I know how terrible that would be for many of us so we badly need longer useful battery life and charge time should only be less than 15 minutes during which we should have a backup phone available so we can keep after Twitter, Pokemon Go, and all those vital text messages from our friends about what they just saw on TV.
This is a website for tech, not a website for angry old men who think technology has gone too far and what happened to the good old days!
No doubt it's satisfying to be the final arbiter on what what is acceptable and unacceptable use of our private devices, but you should open your mind to the notion that many people do other things with them besides "Twitter, Pokemon Go, and text messages about Television"
Perhaps you can consider the possibility that some people have been so busy "looking up" outside of their home that they haven't had a chance to recharge for a long time. Or perhaps they simply forgot to plug in the phone over night. Or perhaps they are visiting a new city and have used their phone exhaustively for navigation. Or perhaps one of a zillion other reasons that fall outside your assumptions.
If you truly think slow charging is a superior option, then please feel free to stick with USB-1 for as long as you want. No one will judge you as harshly for that as you do others for how they live their lives.
There's a difference between slow charging, normal charging, and 5000 gigawatts of battery-cooking power. They WANT your battery to start sucking after a year or so. Maybe *you're* stuck in the past but recent phones have so much horsepower it's harder to justify an upgrade every generation for "speed" reasons. Now the number one reason is "battery life isn't good anymore and it's not user-serviceable".
Some of that is user-inflicted by using substantially higher than stock charging current. If your battery is easily swapped, no big deal. But otherwise... don't complain when your battery starts to sag.
You must never use your cell phone for work? I use mine all the time, take pictures of things i need for later, play some Hearthstone on lunch, text/ emailing the boss / coworkers. I also listen to music / podcasts all day in between all of this. So yeah I'm doing my job on my phone and it burns the battery. Get with the times grandpa.
I don't carry a phone at work. A cheap. prepaid flip phone goes with me on rare occasions when I take a long trip in the event I need to contact emergency services. I don't have trouble with navigation and finding my way around without the assistance of GPS services and I have no burning need for constant entertainment in my idle time because I'm capable of entertaining myself with my own mind if needed. I guess you wouldn't understand any of that if you've become accustomed to living with the assistance of a device to get by in daily life.
If you were really happy with your self-limited life, you wouldn't need to attack people who are able to adapt to and take advantage of new technologies.
So what you're saying is that you feel threatened enough to accuse someone of attacking when you feel like your lifestyle choices are being threatened. Interesting.
Get a phone that doesn't suck on battery life, or plug it in... to a lithium battery pack if you're constantly on the go. Charge during lunch. Etcetera. It's not rocket science.
>I don't think anyone has their phone on during sleep, perfect time to charge.
Right because I absolutely want to be totally unreachable by friends and family in the middle of the night. Also if my girlfriend starts having a heart attack, I definitely want to wait 2-3 minutes for my phone to start up or for me to get to a neighbor's house to get them to call an ambulance.
And I ESPECIALLY don't use my phone as an alarm clock.
my Galaxy s7 takes a decent amount, probably about a minute due to encryption but i very rarely turn off the phone in the first place, i usually restart it about once a week or so is the only real reason it has to go through that process.
It's been a long time since I had a phone that would stay switched off when it is plugged in. All of my recent phones have turned themselves on as soon as plugged in.
Yeah, I think Android itself needs to start presenting you with an option for "Normal Charging" and "Quick Charging" when you plug it in and when it recognizes quick charging capabilities.
Quick charging should only be used in "emergency" situations, so the default should always be normal charging.
Why are they introducing yet another proprietary quick-charge protocol when USB itself supports up to 100W of power over a USB-C cable using USB Power Delivery?
I'm not an expert on battery tech. I know the basic structure and function but a real understanding is beyond me. I always remember the old days when I used to play with self built remote controlled cars and the batteries were able to be fast charged. It was said that you could do one fast charge for every slow one and to do otherwise would destroy the battery. In my mind therefore, fast charging has always been potentially a bad thing and indeed I've noticed my phone battery life shorten quicker on my latest one than with previous devices without the fast charging tech... Obviously there could be so many confounding variables here that it's hardly a scientific analysis.
Can anyone explain how fast charging reduces the lifespan of the battery? I assume given that they're going on about protecting it and boasting about charge cycles that it must be an identified issue.
To put it simply, fast charging generates a lot of heat and strain on the battery cells, this heat and strain create shortcircuits within the battery causing parts of it to be unusable/non-reactive and thus diminishing charging capacity. The main issue here is the liquid/gel lithium electrolyte, if the battery electrolytes were in the solid state, significantly higher currents could be supported, and order of magnitude higher charge/discharge cycles. As you stated, the problem has been identified previously, in fact since the very beginning of lithium batteries. It is an issue inherent to packed batteries with liquid/gel electrolytes, because of the phase change (liquid-solid-liquid).
i think wireless charging needs to be focused on more importantly. I would say 95%+ of people who start the day with a 100% charge do not need to recharge their phones throughout the day especially if you have a car mount you put your phone in for GPS use that charges the phone while you drive to your various locations throughout the day. So being able to just sit your phone down at night and not have to fiddle with a cable greatly increases your chances of complying with charging every night making the need for high wattage fast charging in emergency situations an extremely rare need. Let's just get wireless charging up to the same speed as max power draw from USB 2.0 charging cable. Get rid of the extra circuitry and sensors for this high speed charging and replace it with medium speed usb 2.0 wireless charging speed which can charge big 4000mah batteries in about 4 hours (bout 1 hour per 1000 mah at usb 2.0 charging speed) which is great for a wireless pad you sit it on when you go to bed. Then just upgrade the phones port to USB 3.1 gen 2 type C data transfer 10gbps and use the usb's basic power delivery for faster charging 1000 mah every 15 mins and skip all the proprietary fast charging bs to try and differentiate yourself. Differentiate yourself with usb 2.0s max charging speed into wireless charging.
There is one advantage to wireless charging. Now they're expecting us to use the USB port for sound as well it's going to get a lot of use and potentially break faster. At least wireless charging helps reduce the repeated stress on one over used connector.
But whilst I did like it on my palm pre, I agree it's petty stupid. Also means you can't really use it properly whilst charging.
braking the USB cable or port comes to mind (especially iphone cables very fragile) it's not a fast charge but thats not the point really its just to top it up when you're not using it
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40 Comments
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Rocket321 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
Love the Doc Brown references :)Hey, maybe we will be able to re-purpose our spare 65w laptop bricks to charge our phones in the future!
Lolimaster - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
All this things are made to kill your devices faster, I don't think anyone has their phone on during sleep, perfect time to charge.bubblyboo - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
I just a Qi charging dock. Slow overnight charge and no need to plug anything in.Alexvrb - Sunday, March 5, 2017 - link
I love Qi charging... bought a 10W Anker Qi charger and it has been great. It's not life changing or a necessity, and I still use the microUSB port when I travel, but at home it's nice to just plop it on the mat when I go to sleep.T1beriu - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
What if my phone died mid-day and I only have 30 minutes to charge it?BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
You may have to look up from your little screen to acknowledge the world around you. I know how terrible that would be for many of us so we badly need longer useful battery life and charge time should only be less than 15 minutes during which we should have a backup phone available so we can keep after Twitter, Pokemon Go, and all those vital text messages from our friends about what they just saw on TV.T1beriu - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
People also use phones for their job.TwistedKestrel - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
WowDizoja86 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
That was basic. A little behind on the times in regards to what people use smartphones for, aren't you?BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
You're right, I forgot to add Instagram and Facebook, but the list was already getting a bit long.grant3 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
This is a website for tech, not a website for angry old men who think technology has gone too far and what happened to the good old days!No doubt it's satisfying to be the final arbiter on what what is acceptable and unacceptable use of our private devices, but you should open your mind to the notion that many people do other things with them besides "Twitter, Pokemon Go, and text messages about Television"
Perhaps you can consider the possibility that some people have been so busy "looking up" outside of their home that they haven't had a chance to recharge for a long time. Or perhaps they simply forgot to plug in the phone over night. Or perhaps they are visiting a new city and have used their phone exhaustively for navigation. Or perhaps one of a zillion other reasons that fall outside your assumptions.
If you truly think slow charging is a superior option, then please feel free to stick with USB-1 for as long as you want. No one will judge you as harshly for that as you do others for how they live their lives.
UltraWide - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
Well said. :)Alexvrb - Sunday, March 5, 2017 - link
There's a difference between slow charging, normal charging, and 5000 gigawatts of battery-cooking power. They WANT your battery to start sucking after a year or so. Maybe *you're* stuck in the past but recent phones have so much horsepower it's harder to justify an upgrade every generation for "speed" reasons. Now the number one reason is "battery life isn't good anymore and it's not user-serviceable".Some of that is user-inflicted by using substantially higher than stock charging current. If your battery is easily swapped, no big deal. But otherwise... don't complain when your battery starts to sag.
sc14s - Saturday, March 4, 2017 - link
You must never use your cell phone for work? I use mine all the time, take pictures of things i need for later, play some Hearthstone on lunch, text/ emailing the boss / coworkers. I also listen to music / podcasts all day in between all of this. So yeah I'm doing my job on my phone and it burns the battery. Get with the times grandpa.BrokenCrayons - Monday, March 6, 2017 - link
I don't carry a phone at work. A cheap. prepaid flip phone goes with me on rare occasions when I take a long trip in the event I need to contact emergency services. I don't have trouble with navigation and finding my way around without the assistance of GPS services and I have no burning need for constant entertainment in my idle time because I'm capable of entertaining myself with my own mind if needed. I guess you wouldn't understand any of that if you've become accustomed to living with the assistance of a device to get by in daily life.JeffFlanagan - Monday, March 6, 2017 - link
If you were really happy with your self-limited life, you wouldn't need to attack people who are able to adapt to and take advantage of new technologies.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, March 7, 2017 - link
So what you're saying is that you feel threatened enough to accuse someone of attacking when you feel like your lifestyle choices are being threatened. Interesting.Alexvrb - Sunday, March 5, 2017 - link
Get a phone that doesn't suck on battery life, or plug it in... to a lithium battery pack if you're constantly on the go. Charge during lunch. Etcetera. It's not rocket science.CMDMC12 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
>I don't think anyone has their phone on during sleep, perfect time to charge.Right because I absolutely want to be totally unreachable by friends and family in the middle of the night. Also if my girlfriend starts having a heart attack, I definitely want to wait 2-3 minutes for my phone to start up or for me to get to a neighbor's house to get them to call an ambulance.
And I ESPECIALLY don't use my phone as an alarm clock.
Dizoja86 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
Is that really how you chose to interpret that comment?grant3 - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
Your phone takes 3 minutes to start up? Yikes.I think the original comment was implying that slow-charging was acceptable for an *inactive* phone, i.e., the screen is off.
sc14s - Saturday, March 4, 2017 - link
my Galaxy s7 takes a decent amount, probably about a minute due to encryption but i very rarely turn off the phone in the first place, i usually restart it about once a week or so is the only real reason it has to go through that process.sorten - Thursday, March 2, 2017 - link
You don't need to turn off your phone to charge it :-)jimbo2779 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
It's been a long time since I had a phone that would stay switched off when it is plugged in. All of my recent phones have turned themselves on as soon as plugged in.MrSpadge - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
> All this things are made to kill your devices fasterSure, that's why they've invested so much engineering into reaching those 800 load/unload cycles for 20% capacity degradation.
Sttm - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
I only need the device to last 2 years tops, so I'll take that 20 minute full charge.Krysto - Monday, March 6, 2017 - link
Yeah, I think Android itself needs to start presenting you with an option for "Normal Charging" and "Quick Charging" when you plug it in and when it recognizes quick charging capabilities.Quick charging should only be used in "emergency" situations, so the default should always be normal charging.
zodiacfml - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
Nothing in the article mentioned the size of the charger. I saw one photo show its relative size and the charger is larger than my laptop charger.I doubt they will start using the tech though as I mentioned above. One Plus has a good implementation already and it's pretty fast for many people
T1beriu - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
By using the A4 paper size as a reference I can guesstimate the size is around 7x6 cm.Guspaz - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
Why are they introducing yet another proprietary quick-charge protocol when USB itself supports up to 100W of power over a USB-C cable using USB Power Delivery?philehidiot - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
I'm not an expert on battery tech. I know the basic structure and function but a real understanding is beyond me. I always remember the old days when I used to play with self built remote controlled cars and the batteries were able to be fast charged. It was said that you could do one fast charge for every slow one and to do otherwise would destroy the battery. In my mind therefore, fast charging has always been potentially a bad thing and indeed I've noticed my phone battery life shorten quicker on my latest one than with previous devices without the fast charging tech... Obviously there could be so many confounding variables here that it's hardly a scientific analysis.Can anyone explain how fast charging reduces the lifespan of the battery? I assume given that they're going on about protecting it and boasting about charge cycles that it must be an identified issue.
patrik.fin - Sunday, March 5, 2017 - link
To put it simply, fast charging generates a lot of heat and strain on the battery cells, this heat and strain create shortcircuits within the battery causing parts of it to be unusable/non-reactive and thus diminishing charging capacity. The main issue here is the liquid/gel lithium electrolyte, if the battery electrolytes were in the solid state, significantly higher currents could be supported, and order of magnitude higher charge/discharge cycles. As you stated, the problem has been identified previously, in fact since the very beginning of lithium batteries. It is an issue inherent to packed batteries with liquid/gel electrolytes, because of the phase change (liquid-solid-liquid).philehidiot - Sunday, March 5, 2017 - link
Cheers, much appreciated.Laststop311 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
i think wireless charging needs to be focused on more importantly. I would say 95%+ of people who start the day with a 100% charge do not need to recharge their phones throughout the day especially if you have a car mount you put your phone in for GPS use that charges the phone while you drive to your various locations throughout the day. So being able to just sit your phone down at night and not have to fiddle with a cable greatly increases your chances of complying with charging every night making the need for high wattage fast charging in emergency situations an extremely rare need. Let's just get wireless charging up to the same speed as max power draw from USB 2.0 charging cable. Get rid of the extra circuitry and sensors for this high speed charging and replace it with medium speed usb 2.0 wireless charging speed which can charge big 4000mah batteries in about 4 hours (bout 1 hour per 1000 mah at usb 2.0 charging speed) which is great for a wireless pad you sit it on when you go to bed. Then just upgrade the phones port to USB 3.1 gen 2 type C data transfer 10gbps and use the usb's basic power delivery for faster charging 1000 mah every 15 mins and skip all the proprietary fast charging bs to try and differentiate yourself. Differentiate yourself with usb 2.0s max charging speed into wireless charging.samer1970 - Friday, March 3, 2017 - link
wireless charging is a joke ... because the base is plugged to The wall .. so what is the point ? plug the Phone instead ...Wireless charging is garbage to steal your money for nothing ... Just plug the cable lazy people
philehidiot - Saturday, March 4, 2017 - link
There is one advantage to wireless charging. Now they're expecting us to use the USB port for sound as well it's going to get a lot of use and potentially break faster. At least wireless charging helps reduce the repeated stress on one over used connector.But whilst I did like it on my palm pre, I agree it's petty stupid. Also means you can't really use it properly whilst charging.
leexgx - Monday, March 6, 2017 - link
braking the USB cable or port comes to mind (especially iphone cables very fragile) it's not a fast charge but thats not the point really its just to top it up when you're not using itJeffFlanagan - Monday, March 6, 2017 - link
Your emotional problems are causing you to call useful tech a "joke" and "garbage."Maybe look into your underlying issues before going out in public.
Ro_Ja - Saturday, March 4, 2017 - link
It's a nice step of technology!People will soon realize that fast charging is the way to go. I hope there's customization with how long the battery charges too.
dini9600 - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
How much is the cost and can it be supported for 1+3t ......pls send the details to [email protected] with pleasure