introduction
Watts are the new megapixels: the race for numbers is proceeding at full speed in the field of fast charging for smartphones. While some choose not to participate (Apple and Samsung, but also Google and Sony), others are pumping out figures of power that were unthinkable until recently. We just got to try Realme’s 240W solution on the GT3, and you can read about our results in that phone’s full review.
But 240W is no longer the maximum number of watts someone is dumping on a phone’s battery and no, we don’t mean Redmi’s 300W lab test from a while back.
We now have Infinix’s All-Round Fast Charge that has 260W printed on the box, and it’s a box that’s with us in the office. And they also have a wireless one rated at 110W, perhaps even more impressive in its context. We have to time both and have some pretty crazy numbers to report on.
There is one small caveat to mention before proceeding though. While Realme’s 240W charging is in a production device and the Redmi is apparently on a testbed somewhere, the Infinix solution is somewhere in between. The company is apparently confident enough in its technology to not mind sending it to reviewers, but it’s still not a commercial-grade product you can get in a store. Infinix promises that we will get a real product ready to market this year, so there is not long to wait.
The phone that is the vehicle to showcase All-Round Fast Charge is a modified version of the Infinix Zero Ultra. The changes include a slightly smaller battery capacity (4,400mAh versus 4,500mAh on the standard phone) and the addition of an induction coil — the Zero Ultra doesn’t support wireless charging. It’s worth pointing out that the ‘garden variety’ Zero Utlra itself isn’t overlooked when it comes to charging speeds claiming a 180W speed and a 12-minute empty-to-full time.
Unpacking
The Infinix Demo Fast Charging Phone arrived in a specially designed box with the eye-catching numbers printed on the lid. The included 260W adapter is pretty chunky, and so is the wireless charging pad, if you can even call it a pad. A single USB-C cable is included which is used to charge the phone directly from the adapter or to supply power from the adapter to the induction charger.
Technology
The Infinix documentation mentions that they are using a 12C battery, meaning it can theoretically be charged in 5 minutes (60 minutes divided by the C rating). It’s also saying that they’re using a 4 pump system, as opposed to the 2 pumps we’ve seen in previous quick charge designs. In our understanding this means they are actually charging two separate batteries, and the voltage reported by Android suggests they have two batteries wired in series – it’s a nominal 7.4V, instead of the usual 3.7V.
The GaN AC adapter is rated up to 20V/13A, and the supplied cable is also rated to support 13A.
As for the wireless charging “dock” (as they call it, which actually might be more appropriate than the “pad” we’d normally go with), it allows for both vertical and horizontal phone placement and has a built-in fan to help. with heat dissipation. The fan is quite loud in our experience, although being an ultra-fast wireless charger it probably has no place on your bedside table anyway.
Infinix explains that it has implemented 142 hardware and software measures to protect the phone and peripherals during high-speed charging, 21 of which are temperature sensors. The company’s internal tests have shown that the battery will have retained 90% of its original capacity after 1000 charge-discharge cycles, or what they say is two years of use, so they involve quite heavy use.
Test procedure
Infinix has specified a testing procedure to achieve the advertised charging speeds. While it wouldn’t normally be logical to expect a user to conform to a set procedure in real life, their recommendations weren’t out of this world and were somewhat closely aligned with our usual testing methodology, so the results are comfortably comparable with the ones you see in the Charging Speed section of our reviews.
What they required was to discharge the phone to 4% charge (presumably quickly) and let it sit for half an hour until it drops to 1% on its own. It’s this particular part of the procedure that we haven’t observed quite as rigorously, but there was a period of at least 15 minutes between the rapid discharge phase and the start of the charge where we let the phone idle at 1% so that were the internal temperatures drop.
Testing was done at room temperature, which for this particular reviewer’s stay was at least a couple of degrees cooler than the suggested 25˚C. The phone was kept on for testing and wasn’t disturbed during the process, so the screen was off.
Results
In our tests of wired charging, the demo phone achieved the reported 100% after being plugged in for 6:27 minutes, although it continued to draw power for a bit longer and Android reported a “full” battery status 7:51 minutes after the start. Technically, it’s the first number we post in our reviews, and it’s common practice for phones to report 100% a short amount of time before actually reaching full status and stopping charging.
We got to 25% in the first 60 seconds as promised in the Infinix documentation, while a 50% state of charge was achieved in 2:13 minutes.
You could say it was our most “standard” run, but we ran it a couple more times and on one of the runs we got 5:48 minutes at 100%, while another took 7:13 minutes and in both cases the phone reported a “full” status in 8:40 minutes and change. No anomalies in temperatures were observed, and all three runs maxed out at 47 degrees at the end of the trial.
We’d say there were no changes to the testing procedure between rides, but we did insert a power meter between the phone and its cord for the 7:13-minute ride. This may or may not have affected his performance, but we’re leaning towards “could” as that ride was the least fast in the early stages. This is pretty much why we’re refraining from posting power meter readings – we feel it’s another case of “seeing the phenomenon alters the phenomenon”.
While charging wirelessly, the Infinix Demo phone reached 100% in 14:28 minutes and it took another 3 minutes to report a “full” status at 17:34 minutes. At the 5 minute mark we were looking at 44%, the 50% status was reached at 6:05 minutes and after 10 minutes we were at 73%.
We don’t keep a database of wireless charging speeds, simply because we often fail to test the “best” wireless charger for a particular phone and it’s one of those areas where proprietary solutions make a difference. It often does this with wired charging, but in these cases you usually get your phone’s specific wired chargers in the box. Anyway, here’s how Infinix Charging compares to some noteworthy phone models.
Instead of a conclusion
We have divided opinions on super-fast charging in the office. Namely, some of us love it for its convenience, others hate it for its perceived impact on battery longevity. The thing is, while the longevity argument is more theoretical since a real long-term objective test in the real world against “slow” charging is nearly impossible, the practical benefits of fast charging can be seen right away.
There is one question that inevitably arises: how fast is fast Enough? Half an hour? Ten minutes? Five? Is there no such thing as “fast enough”? Well, we’ll try to steer clear of philosophical debates of this sort – if we can’t settle it amongst ourselves, who are we to answer for you? We’re just a bunch of guys with a demo phone, a couple of chargers, and a stopwatch.
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