Huawei’s recently announced 40W SuperCharge battery bank reportedly made a brief appearance on Huawei’s website before subsequently being removed, offering a deeper glimpse into what can be expected from the upcoming accessory.
Packing in a capacity of 12,000mAh — enough to charge up the Huawei P30 or P30 Pro’s respective 3,650mAh a few times or 4200mAh at least a couple of times — the new battery bank appeared in relatively subdued white or blue configurations. It also weighs slightly more than the larger 192-gram smartphone at 227 grams.
Aside from the usual branding found on the wider face of the power bank, a relatively standard power button and four white LED indicators are found on the narrower top-edge alongside the USB and USB-C plugs. The indicators serve to inform users of how full the power bank itself is with each dot effectively indicating that up to one-quarter of the charge is still available.
With regard to the plugs, either can be used for power-output but only the USB-A standard port outputs power at up to the 40W rate advertised. The USB Type-C port is a Power Delivery port that ensures other gadgets can be charged at whatever their maximum rate happens to be. That also serves as a way to charge the power bank itself.
SuperCharge vs Quick Charge 3.0
On the face of things, the new SuperCharge 40W solution is going to be far superior to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 offering by virtue of the fact that the latter of those maxes out at around 18W. That would also explain why Huawei felt the need to introduce a completely new power bank to support its latest flagships.
On paper, other charging protocols simply aren’t going to push out enough power to charge up the gadget as quickly as could be accomplished. Huawei has said that the 4200mAh powerhouse inside of its P30 Pro can be charged up to 70-percent in around 30-minutes with 40W SuperCharge.
Since the power bank in question can be charged at 40W too, the power bank has been advertised as being refillable in just under two and a quarter hours — as opposed to the nearly five and a half hours it would take at 10W.
The overall wattage here will almost certainly make charging using SuperCharge faster than with Quick Charge 3.0. Huawei has put serious effort into ensuring that its gadgets can safely handle a much higher wattage, Qualcomm has focused primarily on the efficiency side of things.
In real-world use, factors such as charging temperature will come into play, possibly reducing or limiting the flow of energy for Huawei’s new technology where Quick Charge won’t necessarily face that issue thanks to Qualcomm’s investment in efficiency. So it remains to be seen exactly how much faster 40W SuperCharge will be.
Not really affordable but not expensive either
While the new Huawei 12,000mAh SuperCharge power bank listing was still available, it was reportedly listed at a price of right around $111 — or €99. Unsurprisingly, that means it won’t be one of the least expensive charging banks available but it also won’t be the most pricey either, hitting right around the middle of the pricing bracket. Huawei still hasn’t detailed exactly where its portable power solution will be sold but it can likely be expected to appear, at a minimum, anywhere the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are made available.
