So, fast charging Vs regular charging, who wins? With nearly every device now having fast charging capabilities, you’d think that this is a straightforward answer. Before we had fast charging, we had to charge our devices with “normal charging”, or sometimes called “slow charging”. In this article we will be discovering any advantages of fast charging to smartphone users. We will also be seeing whether this new technology is safe to use or whether it can damage our phones.
What is the difference between fast charger and normal charger?
Fast charging is as simple as it sounds. It simply allows your battery to charge faster. Generally, fast charging technology uses more than the required amount of voltage to charge your battery.
How does fast charging work?
Simply put, fast charging works allows for power to enter your phone. For example, slow chargers allow 3V to pass through your phone, whereas fast charging technology outputs more than 3V.
This sounds great! However, your phone must be able to support fast charging capabilities. Although the majority of new devices support fast charging, there are some older models that don’t. Using a fast charger with a phone that doesn’t support fast charging isn’t going to help.
When your battery is nearly full, fast charging drops its speed to become more like normal charging. Try it with you own fast charging phone – you’ll see that getting to 80% takes no time at all, and then it tends to slow down for the next 20%. The purpose of this is to act as a safety mechanism.
Does fast charging damage batteries?
The fast charging technology doesn’t directly affect the life of your battery, but fast charging does indirectly damage battery life. You see, fast charging produces more energy/heat, which often means the battery gets too hot and becomes damaged over time.
When asking does fast charging affect battery life, you don’t have to worry too much. The great thing is that modern phones are built with e safety mechanisms in place that work to stop the battery from becoming overheated. It works by reducing the voltage when a certain temperature is reached. However, even with these safety mechanisms, fast charging does affect battery life.
Advantages of fast charging
Less charging time
This is the most obvious benefit to having fast charging technology. It means you reach more than 50% charge in less than 30 minutes! So if you need to go out very shortly, but don’t have much battery, fast charging can be a life saver. Less time charging means you aren’t controlled by your charger, which allows you to live your life to the max.
Better hardware and software mechanisms
Fast charging outputs more energy. As such, it produces more heat charging does. Due to this fact, the technology manufacturers have built the devices in a clever way that protects the smartphone and the safety of the user.
It works by limiting the volume of voltage that is output when the device reaches a certain temperature, which helps to prevent overheating. Furthermore, the speed of charging becomes slower when your smartphone reaches a certain battery percentage.
These measures prevent battery swelling and other damages to your phone or device. If you still don’t like the fast charging function, you can usually disable it in your phone’s settings.
Allows for longer phone use
You can spend less time charging and more time using your phone on-the-go. This technology is great for people that are on their phone a lot, whether that is for business or pleasure. For example, if you work from home but need to go to the shops, you can give you phone a quick 10 minute blast, which will give enough battery for your trip.
Disadvantages of fast charging
Your smartphone may not support it
Most devices now come with fast charging technology. However, there are some older models that don’t. Furthermore, some devices require a specific charger to activate the technology.
There are compatibility issues too! A Huawei user may not be able to activate their fast charging with a Samsung charger. You will have to use the exact USB cable and charger that comes with the device.
Can damage your battery
Fast charging causes heat. Although frustrating, this is a fact that is hard to escape. This heat isn’t overly damaging to your device, but it has been known to harm your battery. You see, constant fast charging will leave your battery hot for the most of its life, which adds up overtime to slowly damage your battery.
Can shorten the battery lifespan
Those who own fast charging smartphones won’t be worried about how much they use their phone. After all, it will only take 30mins to bring the phone back to full juice.
But did you know that lithium-ion batteries can only be charged a number of times before they start to weaken? Frequent charging can dramatically reduce the amount of times you can charge your battery. While you are reading this you may be thinking “ohhhh so that’s why my phone battery doesn’t last as long as it did when it was brand new”.
Advantages of normal charging
Battery should last longer
Normal charging won’t cause your phone to overheat. This is in direct contrast with fast charging technology that can damage your battery from the phone becoming too hot.
More careful about using your phone
Knowing that your smartphone will take a long time to charge is a good way to stop you from using your phone too much. Essentially, you don’t put your phone through endless heavy use.
Disadvantage of normal charging
Takes a long time to charge
As you can imagine, it takes longer to charge a phone using normal charging technology. In fact, sometimes your battery power doesn’t go up at all when you are using your phone while charging. Those without fast charging technology have to always be conscious of how much power their phone has. Going out this evening and have less than 50% battery? Better get charging!
How to disable fast charging?
Now that you’re aware of the fast charging pros and cons, you should have an idea whether you want to use it or not. If not, here’s how to disable fast charging on smartphone:
- Locate and click “Settings”
- Click on “Battery”
- Once in “Battery”, you need to disable the Fast Charge option
Fast charging Vs normal charging: Verdict
So who wins – fast charger Vs normal charger? There are so many benefits to fast charging technology that it is hard to argue against it. The most obvious advantage to fast charging is the amount of time you save on a daily basis. In fact, you can get to 50% in less than 30 minutes. No longer are you forced to delay your plans to charge your phone.
However, fast charging can slowly deteriorate your battery, although it happens slowly over a long period of time. Smartphone batteries also can’t be removed, which makes it hard to replace them. A good idea is to only use the fast charging technology when you really have to. For example, at night you can use the normal charging, as you aren’t in a rush when sleeping.