While some details of Quick Charge 4.0 have already leaked, Qualcomm has now released the full details of their latest fast charging standard. Their slogan for this version of Quick Charge is “5 for 5”. The reason for this is that they say you can get 5 hours of usage after charging for just 5 minutes. Now when it comes how much usage you’ll actually get, that depends on how you use your smartphone. But Quick Charge 4.0 is a great way to quickly top off your phone before needing to run out the door or something.
USB Type-C and USB-PD are now supported in Quick Charge 4.0. You may remember that Google had asked OEMs not to use Quick Charge with a USB Type-C port, and that’s due to the fact that they were using Quick Charge 3.0 over that connection, and it’s not really that compatible nor safe. However with Quick Charge 4.0 it is completely safe. Quick Charge 4 is expected to be about 30% faster or more efficient than Quick Charge 3.0 was, and that was already fairly fast.
Now Qualcomm did mention that Quick Charge 4.0 is plenty safe. Noting that there are plenty of safe guards included in Quick Charge 4.0, so that users won’t need to worry about their phone getting too hot. In fact, when it comes to the temperature of the phone, Qualcomm says that they have decreased the temperature by 5 degrees (that’s Celsius for those wondering). So not only is it faster than Quick Charge 3.0, but it’s also slightly cooler.
What makes Quick Charge 4.0 so impressive isn’t just the ability to charge your smartphone faster. Qualcomm also implemented “Battery Saving Technologies 2.0”, this is software that debuted in Quick Charge 3.0 last year, but has been improved to help make your battery last even longer, and keep you from having to charge your device as much. It also has cable quality detection, something that is definitely needed with USB-C cables, seeing as not all of them are compatible or compliant. This way you can quickly charge your device even with a non-compliant cable, and do it safely.
Currently, Quick Charge 4.0 is only announced for the upcoming Snapdragon 835 chip which is expected to begin shipping in commercially available devices as soon as the first half of 2017. This new chipset is being manufactured on Samsung’s 10-nanometer FinFET process, so it’s going to have some pretty fast charging as well as some pretty impressive power efficiency. There are no Quick Charge 4 accessories or devices available just yet, but that should be only a matter of time.
