Unlike with the Pixel 3 last year, the Pixel 4 can do fast wireless charging on most fast wireless chargers.
The Pixel 4 actually supports 11W wireless charging, so you can actually charge your smartphone a lot faster this year. That’s a big difference from the Pixel 3.
It was noted on the Wireless Power Consortium’s website, that the Pixel 4 does support 11W. That’s a big jump from the 5W that the Pixel 3 supported.
Pixel 3 did support fast wireless charging, you just couldn’t use it
Yes, the Pixel 3 did have fast wireless charging last year, at 10W. But, Google decided to use a proprietary standard instead of Qi for that. So that it only worked on the Pixel Stand – and a few other Made By Google certified products. Google was supposed to later enable faster wireless charging for other wireless chargers, but never did it.
But with the Pixel 4, fast wireless charging is available on just about all fast wireless chargers. The only real exception here, is wireless chargers that do not support up to 10W. And there are quite a few of them, considering the iPhone does 7.5W.
It’s technically 11W on the Pixel 4, but there are no wireless chargers that do 11W. It’s mostly 10W or 20W (for something like Xiaomi’s Mi 9 smartphone). But 10W is still plenty fast anyways.
This is a great feature to have, especially for those that enjoy using wireless chargers around their home and even at work.
Surprisingly, Google did not mention this at all in its announcement
Google doesn’t usually talk about the specs of its smartphones when they are announced. It knows that specs don’t really matter in 2019, when most phones have the same specs now.
But it was surprising to see that Google did not even announce the fact that there was fast wireless charging on the Pixel 4. That seems like a pretty big deal, for potential buyers.
At 10W, you’re going to be able to charge the Pixel 4’s battery wirelessly in around two hours, maybe a bit less, depending on how much juice was left. That’s still slower than plugging it into the included USB-C PD charger, of course. Since that is 18W.
However, wireless charging can be a whole lot more convenient than needing to find that charger and then plug it in.
Google did the right thing here, and fixed another thing that was wrong with the Pixel 3 last year.