In the seemingly never-ending race for faster-charging speeds, Oppo has now announced a new 150W charging iteration of their SuperVOOC technology which they claim can charge a 4,500 mAh battery from 1% to 50% in a mere five minutes, and further to 100% in 15 minutes.
This superfast charging technology will first make its appearance in OnePlus, Oppo’s sub-brand, later this year (believed to be the 2nd quarter of 2022). Despite making this announcement, both Oppo and OnePlus have remained quiet on which model will first have the technology and whether it will be in the middle range or flagship category.
Similarly, Realme, another OEM that shares a parent company with Oppo and OnePlus is also announcing a 150W charging technology that they are calling UltraDart. BBK Electronics, which owns the three brands, seems to be ensuring the manufacturers share technology to gain an upper hand over their rivals in the market.
Realme has also made similar claims regarding the charging speeds, but rather than keeping quiet on which model will first feature it, they have announced that the GT Neo 3 will get the pleasure of being the first brand to feature the 150W ultrafast charging speed.
In comparison to what the three bands have in the market currently, Oppo Find X5 Pro and the OnePlus 10 Pro only support 80W fast charging, meaning a single generation jump will almost double the charging speeds in their respective flagship models which is impressive, to say the least.
At the moment, Xiaomi’s 11T Pro will be their closest competitor in terms of charging speeds, with the device supporting 120W fast charging with a battery rated at 5,000 mAh. Oppo’s technology will therefore fill it up in a mere 17 minutes, should the charging technology be comparable to the 11T Pro.
Addressing issues regarding the effect of the ultrafast charging speed on the devices’ battery life, OnePlus claims that the battery should maintain as much as 80% of its rated capacity after 1,600 charge cycles with 150W SuperVOOC.
They claim this is possible because of their Battery Health Engine that looks after the battery life. OnePlus further says that the technology is cross-compatible with other fast-charging protocols including Programmable Power Supply (PPS), Power Delivery (PD), and Quick Charge (QC), to allow SuperVOOC to fast-charge non-OnePlus devices. However, this will be without the guaranteed 150 W charging speed.
OnePlus concludes by saying that they are looking to release their most affordable 5G smartphone this year. Depending on the specs and pricing, this should compete directly with the likes of the Redmi Note 11 Pro and Infinix Zero 5G.
Despite the claims of being able to mitigate the wearing of batteries due to fast charging, it is still a real concern as fast charging is notorious for wearing out batteries much quicker compared to slower charging speeds. Samsung for instance has their fastest charging speed rated at 45W, while Apple’s is at a mere 27W.
