Best Fast Charging Standard in the market

One of the things most valued by consumers today on smartphones is the battery life. Regardless of the kind of specifications or features it packs, users want more and more juice to power the device for as long as possible. There was a time when the average smartphone battery life had gone well below a day of use even for an average or light user and that’s when people got dependent on battery packs and other charging methods. However, these days, manufacturers have made the push to include not just larger capacity batteries but also optimize the battery consumption.

However, even then, there are situations that demand a quick recharge of their smartphone and people don’t really want to carry around a battery pack or charger. That’s when quick charging came as a problem solver. Quick charging would allow users to get X% of battery charging within Y minutes and that was often the difference between keeping users entertained through a bus journey instead of getting bored or allowing them to find their way to their destination instead of getting stranded.

But which company has the fastest charging or to be more specific, which fast charging technology is the most efficient and effective. Figures claimed by most companies only reflect a part of the actual truth and that is why we decided to find out for ourselves and present the results to you.

For the test, we decided to compare the Xiaomi Mi 5, Moto G3 Turbo, OnePlus 3, Oppo R7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7. They use Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, Turbo Charging, Dash Charge, VOOC and Adaptive Fast Charging technologies respectively. Below is a chart of the amount of time taken and the percentage of charge the phone can accumulate over said time. Bear in mind that there are also differences in battery capacity as stated below and we’ve tried to get smartphones with the same capacity where we could.

Due to the difference in battery capacities, we would also need to calculate the amount of amperes fed to the phone in each case. In case of the R7 Plus, the capacity is larger at 4100 mAh and in case of the Moto G3 Turbo, capacity is smaller at 2470 mAh. The chart below shows the charging time taken by each phone at different intervals as well as the amount of charge being fed to the phone per minute and per second.

From the stats, we can see that the OnePlus 3 was the quickest to charge from 0-100% while the Moto G3 Turbo was the slowest. The Galaxy S7 and Mi 5 come in at 3rd and 4th places respectively. While that is all one needs to consider when comparing 3 phones of similar capacity, we will need to consider the amount of charge per minute or second instead of the final time due to the difference in capacities.

When you take that into account, you will observe that the Oppo’s VOOC charging method is the most efficient since it manages to refill around 42.6 mAh per minute (0.71 mAh per second) while OnePlus’s Dash Charge comes in at second with 40.8 mAh per minute (0.68 mAh per second). The other three standings remain the same order since the S7, Mi 5 and G3 Turbo come in at 3rd, 4th and 5th positions respectively.

Another important thing to note is that smartphones have become such an integral part of our lives is that we are probably going to use it even when its charging and as a result, the smartphone and charging technology needs to be equipped well enough to handle the occasional texting, video playback or even gaming while being charged.

Whichever charging technology manages to charge the phone with the least amount of deviation from the original charging speed and rise in temperature is what the ideal standard would be. The charts below showcase the various charging times as well as the temperature during gaming and video playback during said intervals.

Phone	Mi 5	Moto G3 Turbo	OnePlus 3	Oppo R7 Plus	S7
%	Time	Time	Time	Time	Time
0
30	21m44s	16m26s	14m2s	18m20s	20m 22s
40	7m19s	7m23s	4m25s	6m14s	7m 11s
50	6m11s	6m41s	4m31s	6m17s	6m 56s
60	7m42s	7m45s	4m43s	6m20s	6m 40s
70	7m27s	9m53s	4m35s	6m14s	7m 25s
80	7m58s	9m20s	5m26s	8m30s	7m 45s
90	10m32s	11m53s	7m31s	10m6s	12m 8s
100	29m8s	29m46s	27m8s	32m59s	16m 35s
Total Time	1h 38m 01s	1h 39m 11s	1h 12m 35s	1h 35m 00s	1h 25m 03s
Amp Per Second	0.51	0.46	0.68	0.71	0.58
Amp Per Minutes	30.6	27.6	40.8	42.6	34.8

In the video playback test, we considered the time taken by the phones to charge from 10% to 100% since video playback is not permitted when the smartphone goes below the former battery level. In this test too, the OnePlus 3 comes on top in terms of fastest charging time but when you consider the actual amount of mAh being refilled, then VOOC is the winner by a small margin. When you take a look at the other three, the positions have been shuffled altogether since the Moto G3 comes in at 3rd while the Mi 5 and S7 come in at 4th and 5th respectively.

This is the case with both the charging times as well as mAh. The reason why the S7 in particular is so slow is because it is the only smartphone in this test to come with a 1440p display which essentially means that it has 4 times the pixel count of other smartphones. This in turn means that it will draw more power while the phone is getting charged.

Phone	Mi 5	Moto G3 Turbo	OnePlus 3	Oppo R7 Plus	S7
%	Time	Time	Time	Time	Time
10
20	13M 25S	6M 39S	3M 45S	8M 47S	17M 4S
30	10M 30S	7M 45S	4M 48S	5M 17S	18M 3S
40	10M 55S	7M 52S	5M 18S	6M 20S	16M 11S
50	10M 51S	8M 00S	4M 33S	6M 14S	16M 55S
60	10M 31S	9M 35S	4M 45S	6M 53S	17M 7S
70	10M 46S	8M 40S	4M 55S	6M 48S	16M 56S
80	13M 43S	9M 11S	5M	6M 42S	16M 59S
90	9M 3S	11M 15S	7M 41S	12M 23S	16M 25S
100	27M 40S	26M 40S	26M 38S	30M 9S	21M 34S
Total Time	1h 57m 04s	1h 36m 01s	1h 07m 38s	1h 29m 55s	2h 37m 23s
Amp Per Second	0.42	0.42	0.73	0.75	0.31
Amp Per Minute	25.49	25.72	44.35	45.59	19.06

In the gaming test, we played games on the smartphones while they were being charged and the results were similar to the video playback test. However, this time around, the Dash Charge and VOOC technologies were identical in terms of mAh.

The rest of their phones retained their positions from the video playback test with the S7 coming in at last due to the extra pixels it has to push. It would be interesting to see just how well the other phones would’ve done in the video playback and gaming tests had they had 1440p screens as well. Our guess is that, the competition would’ve been a lot more fierce in these two tests had that been the case.

Phone	Mi 5	Moto G3 Turbo	OnePlus 3	Oppo R7 Plus	S7
%	Time	Time	Time	Time	Time
10	–	–	–	–	–
20	6M 40S	9M 54S	4M 56S	7M 42S	18M 53S
30	7M 45S	13M 23S	5M 2S	7M 2S	18M 11S
40	7M 52S	15M 33S	5M 35S	7M 38S	17M 35S
50	8M 00S	12M 57S	5M 25S	7M 3S	18M 54S
60	9M 36S	12M 41S	6M 24S	7M 30S	17M 39S
70	8M 40S	9M 32S	6M 22S	7M 44S	19M 20S
80	9M 11S	14M 5S	6M 42S	6M 44S	19M 35S
90	11M 14S	21M 28S	6M 52S	9M 49S	19M 27S
100	26M 36S	23M	23M 23S	35M 32S	26M 30S
Total Time	1h 35m 56s	2h 13m 11s	1h 11m 8s	1h 37m 13s	3h 07m 50s
Amp Per Second	0.52	0.3	0.7	0.7	0.26
Amp Per Minute	31.27	18.54	42.17	42.17	15.97

Companies such as OnePlus also boast about the ability of their charging technology and charger to handle the power management which prevents the smartphone from overheating and also manages to keep a pretty constant speed and current supply when charging. So to test, that out, we also checked the temperatures of the smartphones at various intervals and also the time taken between each interval.

In terms of thermal control, the adaptive charging on the S7 was the best all round since it had the lowest average temperatures during the gaming and video tests while the VOOC took the cake on the normal charging test. In terms of overall thermal control, the Dash Charge and VOOC technologies were the next best things.

Phone	Mi 5	Moto G3 Turbo	OnePlus 3	Oppo R7 Plus	S7
	Temp	Temp	Temp	Temp	Temp
Normal Charging	38.58	36.04	36.06	35.53	35.81
Video Charging	41.2	38.4	38.03	37.98	35.35
Gaming Charging	42.45	41.84	40.07	40.58	38.93

Overall, we were really impressed by both the VOOC and Dash Charge technologies that really offers great charging speeds while managing to keep temperatures in check. Adaptive charging is perhaps the best when it comes to keeping the temperature under control but does tend to take longer to charge but thats due to the phone screen resolution itself rather than a fault of the charging standard.

Also important to note that the Turbo charging from Moto and Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 are no slouches and are incredibly fast in their own rights. We’ve come a long way in terms of charging technology in recent years and any one of these would probably do the job for you. But this is where we leave the decision upto you to decide which is the best charging standard  for your use based on the stats that we have provided. Do let us know if you have any further questions in the comments section below.