Mobile tech enthusiasts are in for the most action-packed first quarter of a calendar year in forever. We already knew Samsung is eager to both unveil and release the Galaxy S21 series for a while now. But it may not be the only company to do so. Namely, an industry insider out of China claims no fewer than five Snapdragon 875 devices will launch in the first quarter of the year.
What’s more, all of them will supposedly have 100W fast charging. In terms of Qualcomm’s latest mobile advancements, that essentially means Quick Charge 5.0 support. Introduced this summer, the said tech allows for some pretty amazing charging times. Or, better said, it would – had anyone actually bothered to commercialize it.
Samsung smartphones with 100W charging still sound like a fairy tale
The first (Android) device to offer Quick Charge 5.0 support was the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra and launched in late summer. And… that’s it, actually. Which both is and isn’t surprising. Given everything that’s been happening since early 2020, smartphone manufacturers haven’t been too crazy about bleeding-edge tech bets.
Even in a regular year, Qualcomm’s new charging tech usually takes a while to really stick. Primarily because Qualcomm has an all-star IP attorney roster to back its world-class chip engineers. And its licensing fees tend to vary from unfair to insane, depending on which plaintiff you ask. The key takeaway is that there’s always a lawsuit to go along with any new mobile tech license from Qualcomm.
You could say that’s just the cost of doing business, especially as by far the most successful player in your field. You’d be naive to do so, but you could. Samsung smartphones often don’t support Qualcomm’s proprietary tech despite using the company’s SoCs because those technologies are licensed separately. In some cases, Qualcomm’s clients had to win the right to license them separately in the court of law. The last Galaxy Note to be advertised as a Quick Charge-compatible device, for example, was the Galaxy Note 4 which turned six two months ago.
This is why we can’t really assume the aforementioned quintet of Snapdragon 875 smartphones includes Samsung products. Not until there’s more in the way of official info or credible reports to back this rumor. Which does come from a known industry insider, to be clear. But it is definitely one of the more out-there smartphone claims in recent memory. As years of precedent dictate Samsung will have priority over pretty much every other mobile company on the planet when it comes to new Qualcomm chips. This is why every new generation of the Galaxy S range usually hits the market prior to any of its rivals in a given year.
None of that is to say smartphones with 100W charging aren’t just around the corner. But whether we’ll have five of them to choose from before spring is another matter, entirely.