After posting last week’s survey of smartphone charging speeds, we’ve been keeping a close eye on it. After a few hours, the 15-30 minutes and 30-45 minutes options were evenly matched, outperforming both other responses in the survey. But then things started to turn around.
In a surprising result, the poll ended up with the 15 minutes or less option at the top and by a decent margin too. People have really gotten into fast charging. The 15-30 and 30-45 minute answers are still on par, but fell well short of the super-fast option.
As usual, there were concerns about the negative effects on battery longevity that fast charging might have. But another opinion has emerged: As the requirements for apps and games increase over time, a 2-year-old phone may start to feel sluggish. Then you’ll start looking for a new phone, even if the battery life is still great.
To put it another way, battery degradation is only a problem if it happens faster than the rest of the phone. Depending on your use cases, the chipset may still appear to be quite fast. But as new display and camera technology rolls out, and as manufacturers stop releasing operating system updates to older phones, you’ll eventually find yourself wanting a new phone.
So there you have it – fast wired charging is good. Several people in the comments said that they prefer using USB Power Delivery (which is the industry standard) rather than proprietary solutions. But even those support USB-PD, just not at the insane 100+ and even 200+ Watt power levels that proprietary technology gives you.
There was a second poll last week, involving wireless charging. This, too, had an interesting result: wireless charging is a widely requested feature, but charging speed doesn’t matter.
A slow, steady pace is useful if you charge overnight or if you have a wireless charger on your desk at work. Wireless charging has other benefits, too: You can charge select headphones and smartwatches, even if you haven’t brought a cable with you.
In the end, both polls were won by convenience. Super-fast wired charging takes the worry out of battery anxiety – as long as you can plug in for a few minutes, you’re good to go for the rest of the day. Wireless charging is useful for those times when speed doesn’t matter but you’d rather not tie your phone down with cables.
As for those asking for user-replaceable batteries to be returned, the EU may grant your wish.
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