How to Fast-Charge Your Smartphone

Here are some of the main charging standards you are likely to encounter:

Power Delivery (PD)

USB PD is the most common USB-C charging standard for smartphones, not to mention tablets and laptops. PD is as close as we currently have to a universal standard. Apple, Google, and Samsung use it in all their latest phones, and most smartphones are compatible with PD chargers. Confusingly, most phones that support proprietary charging standards also support PD.

While there are different versions of PD, there are only a couple of things you need to be aware of:

• Programmable Power Supply (PPS) in PD 3.0 allows granular configurable voltage levels, enabling fine control over power drawn to keep heat (energy loss) to a minimum and charge as fast as possible. Phones that support PPS need a PPS charger to charge at maximum speed.
• Extended Power Range (EPR) in PD 3.1 enables charging rates of up to 240 watts, up from the previous maximum of 100 watts.

Qualcomm Quick Charge (QC)

Qualcomm’s Quick Charge (QC) was developed to charge batteries in devices faster than standard USB, allowed by increasing the output voltage supplied by the USB charger. Since many phones use Qualcomm chipsets, support for QC is widespread. There have been several versions of QC, but the last three versions (QC 4, 4+, and 5) all support PD and can go up to 100 watts. QC is also cross-compatible with many other proprietary standards.

MediaTek Pump Express

MediaTek is another big chipmaker with its own fast-charging technology called Pump Express, much like Qualcomm’s QC. MediaTek doesn’t seem to promote it anymore, but Pump Express version 4.0 is compliant with the USB PD 3.0 standard.

Oppo VOOC and SuperVOOC

Developed by Oppo, Voltage Open Loop Multi-Step Constant-Current Charging (VOOC) was first introduced in 2014, with successor SuperVOOC following two years later. Both are proprietary standards, but Oppo has licensed them for use by other brands, such as OnePlus (its Warp Charge relied on VOOC technology) and Realme. While most fast-charging technologies supply a higher voltage, SuperVOOC uses higher amperage and employs two tricks: a dual-cell battery in the phone and offloaded charging circuitry in the charger.

While VOOC only offered 20 watts to start with, the standard has consistently been faster than most of the competition, and SuperVOOC 2.0 brought 65-watt charging in 2020. It jumped to 100 watts soon after and can go higher (theoretically up to 240 watts), though very few devices go beyond 100 watts today. To get the top speeds, you need a SuperVOOC 100-watt charger, but it’s worth noting that they double as PD chargers to deliver up to 65 watts.