Qualcomm is giving its Quick Charge technology its first major speed boost since 2017. The company says its new Quick Charge 5 will let you take a a battery from 0 to 50 percent in just 5 minutes.
For the sake of comparison, Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4+ technology took 15 minutes to do the same thing.
The first devices with support for Quick Charge 5 should arrive in the third quarter of 2020, and Qualcomm notes that phones with Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+ phone should support Quick Charge 5 power adapters when they arrive.
Qualcomm says its new charging technology supports more than 100 watts of charging power which is unusual for smartphones… but not exactly unheard of. Chinese phone maker Oppo introduced its own 125W fast charging system earlier this month.
Quick Charge 5 also incorporates Qualcomm Battery Saver and Qualcomm Smart Identification of Adapter Capabilities to help keep your battery from frying. There are 12 voltage, current, and temperature protections in place, and Qualcomm says Quick Charge 5 is 70-percent more efficient than Quick Charge 4, while running at a temperature that’s 10 degrees Celsius cooler.
The latest version of Quick Charge is also backward-compatible with Quick Charge 2 and later. That means if you have an older Quick Charge-compatible smartphone, you’ll be able to use a Quick Charge 5 power adapter with it. You’ll just be limited to the fastest charging speed your own phone (or tablet or whatever) supports.
So will QC5 chargers now be able to charge laptops ? I am guessing that PD2.0 and maybe even 3.0 chargers without other certification for changing voltage during charging still wont be able to charge a QC5 device anywhere near 100W .
This is a really big feature. 50% in 5 minutes is a big leap. I just hope that Smartphone makers don’t see this as an excuse to deliver smaller batteries.
I took a quick look on Amazon, and I actually can’t find any 100W chargers under $100. They seem to be only available as larger multi-port chargers. With the new trend of not bundling chargers with phones, I’m a little worried.
I can’t see any Quick Charge 4 adapters on Amazon. Quick Charge 3 was really good and a dual channel DAC can easily drive the protocol. With USB C adapters being abundant & not too pricey and all phones supporting it, i don’t see a need for QC 5. I am thinking that Qualcomm will try to sell this to a big OEM like Samsung.