Picture this: you got a new phone for yourself or were gifted one during the past holiday season. For the sake of getting the most out of the new device, you made it a point to take care of it as much as you can.
You know that some chargers and cables can charge phones quickly, but you also know that using these could damage your new phone's battery little by little until it can no longer hold a charge for very long.
As such, you're intrigued by the notion that your new phone can handle fast charging and if it is a good feature to have and use.
Fast Charging: What It Is And How It Works
Fast charging is a feature that most, if not all, modern phones have by now. According to PCMag, it allows smartphone users to charge their devices in a shorter time than older devices can.
To do this, manufacturers either boost the amount of electricity flowing from the battery to the connected device (amperage) or vary the strength of the electric current (voltage) to increase the potential energy the device receives.
To do so, most manufacturers turn to USB-C cables due to their support for up to 100W and 20V worth of electricity, making faster charging speeds possible. Another way manufacturers accomplish fast charging is by providing adapters that deliver the required wattage to reach the advertised charging speed.
Case in point, Samsung advised its customers to use a 25W or 45W Samsung-approved adapter to utilize fast charging.
How-to Geek explained in its article that cites a Battery University article that the fast charging process involves three stages:
- Constant Current - during this stage, a phone's fast charger increases its voltage towards its peak, charging your phone's battery quickly through the rising electrical current.
- Saturation - Once the phone charger reaches its voltage peak, typically when the phone's battery is almost fully charged, its current slowly drops down. According to ASDA Mobile, this stage is why phones take an hour to charge the remaining 10% of a battery.
- Trickle/Topping - the phone's battery is fully charged at this stage. However, the charger will periodically charge a low "topping" amount to keep it from losing charge.
Does Fast Charging Ruin A Phone's Battery Life?
During the charging process, phones capable of fast charging, much like older phones, heat up. However, it won't go hot to such an extreme level that you'll believe it is overheating.
As such, there isn't any reason to worry about your phone's battery if this happens.
The same can also be said when it comes to the speed fast charging provides. With the amount of power flowing into your phone's battery, you'd be forgiven for thinking that much will deteriorate your phone's battery life quicker.
Fortunately, because of the three stages we previously discussed, fast charging doesn't have a detrimental effect on a phone's battery.
The only reason to worry about fast charging is if your adapter, cable, or battery is damaged or defective, per CNET.
