Four months ago, Qualcomm unveiled Quick Charge 3+, its newest quick charge/fast charge technology for smartphones which promises 0 to 50% in just 15 minutes. Now, however, the company has introduced Quick Charge 5 to compete with the recently launched Oppo 125W super flash charge and iQOO 120W flash charge technology.
Quick Charge 5 is now the latest fast charge technology and it takes a huge leap from the Quick Charge 4. Qualcomm claimed te new quick technology is 70% more efficient than its predecessor, the Quick Charge 4 and can charge a 4,500mAh battery from 0 to 50% in just 5 minutes while a full charge will take 15 minutes. Quick Charge 5 supports speeds of 100 Watts and more while keeping the battery 10°C cooler.
The charging mechanism is similar to iQOO’s 120W flash charge technology, Qualcomm has also opted for a dual charging solution which splits the battery into two 2,250 mAh cells connected in series to increase their voltage. Triple charge is also supported. QC5 power bricks are required to support output voltages between 3.3 and 20 Volts at minimum, with 3.3 or 5 Amps of current or (for the beefier units) 5+ Amps.
Quick Charge 5 is built on top of USB Power Delivery Programmable Power Delivery PPS that lets it control the current levels and the voltage at the time of charging. Interestingly, QC5 brings backwards compatibility to QC2 and later accessories and smartphones and will as well work with standard USB PD devices like iPhone 7 and newer.
Qualcomm claims its system is safer than plain Power Delivery too. It features 8 levels of voltage protection, 3 levels of current protection, 3 levels of thermal protection and 3 timer protections, plus over-voltage protection at 25 V. Quick Charge 5 is expected to arrive on smartphones in the third quarter of this year.
Faster charging does sounds great, but, we’re still not sure on how 100W or greater wattages will impact battery life. Snapdragon 865 and 865+ already supports Quick Charge 5, however, that doesn’t mean Snapdragon 865/865+ phones already available in the market will be able to use it (as the chipset needs to be paired with the new SMB chips).
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