Sometime in July last year, rumors were rife that Xiaomi would bring its 200W fast charging solution to its smartphones and that the Xiaomi 12 Ultra being the first to receive it. However, much water has flown down the Ganges since. The Xiaomi 12 has gone official rumors are afoot that an Ultra model may not arrive.
So, where does that leave the fast charging super express? Leaker DigitalChatStation claims that not just Xiaomi but its rival Oppo may soon commercialise these warp speed chargers on upcoming handsets. The leak made on Weibo was reported by GizmoChina in a report.
The race to up the ante on fast charging began after phone makers started besting each other on the camera front. Devices with 50MP primary shooters became passe as Xiaomi got a 108MP camera on its device and Samsung promising a 200MP one in an upcoming flagship device soon.
The race towards fast-charging supremacy
Coming to the latest update on this front, the tipster claims that both Xiaomi and Oppo were experimenting with the 200W fast-charging solution and could be ready with commercial usage as early as this year. It could either be part of an upcoming handset or users could purchase a 200W adapter separately.
Readers would recall that Xiaomi had tested its 200W charging speeds on a Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro handset where its 4,000mAh battery went from zero to full in a matter of eight minutes. It got to 50% charge within three minutes and just 44 seconds to get to 10% of its capacity.
Though no official confirmation is available from either of the two phone makers, it was rumored recently that Xiaomi was close to starting mass production of the 200W charging solution and may begin a rollout in the second quarter of 2022. However, given the manner in which these reports panned out in 2021, we would take all of it with more than a pinch of salt.
As for Oppo, the company is already manufacturing a 125W wired fast charging technology solution though recent reports indicated that they were also testing a new dual-cell battery implementation with safety detection chips. As for their 200W charger, there is no information forthcoming either via leaks or rumors.
However, all this brouhaha over fast charging capacities needs to be tempered with how this technology impacts a handset's battery itself. Reports from Android Authority, after 800 charging cycles a phone’s battery life would drop to 80% of the original thanks to the HyperCharge. The 4000mAh phone used in the demonstration would have an equivalent size of just 3,200mAh.
So, if one were to assume that a user charges her device from empty to full each day, the 800 cycles would complete within just two years. For those who upgrade their smartphones regularly, this may work out well, but consider the majority who keep their handsets handy for more than two years?
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