The smartphone “charging wars” are mainly fought on the wired front, where some companies have already crossed the 100W threshold, giving you a full 0-100% charge in about or even less than 20 minutes. But every now and then the battle is transmitted on the wireless front where manufacturers are also reaching speeds that were unthinkable a few years ago.
One such device is the vivo X80 Pro which we did not review too long ago and which supports 50W wireless charging. The only catch is that you need a specialized wireless charging stand. We recently received one such charger at our office – vivo’s 50W wireless flash charger and are now ready to report on what makes it possible.
To achieve lightning-fast charging times, the vivo X80 Pro has a dual-battery battery with two charging pumps – an industry-standard approach used on most new flagship phones these days. With its combined battery cell capacity of 4,700 mAh, X80 Pro passed an impressive 79 hours in our own battery endurance test. X80 Pro comes with a bundled 80W FlashCharge adapter (20V / 4A) and matching USB-C cable. In our wired charging test, we reached a peak charging power of 65-66W at 17V and 4A, which resulted in a full charge of 39 minutes.
vivo claims the 50W wireless flash charger can charge the X80 Pro up to 50% in 23 minutes while a full charge should take 50 minutes or just 11 minutes more than the 80W wired FlashCharge solution. Of course, the company confirms that the actual charging power is “dynamically adjusted” and “subject to actual use” – which means you should not expect 50W power to explode the phone at all times.
Most devices that support Qi wireless charging can charge at up to 15W speeds. You will need a vivo or iOOO charger that supports 66W (or higher) FlashCharge and a compatible USB cable to reach the 50W wireless charging speed.
A few quick words about the 50W Wireless FlashCharge Charger. It has a dual-coil design that lets you place your phone in either portrait or landscape orientations – the latter is useful if you want to watch a video while your phone is charging. The cradle has a 60-degree tilt and a built-in cooling fan at the bottom, which reaches up to 3,600 RPM.
An inside look into the charging coils and fan of the vivo 50W Flash Charger
The loading block brings a white and silver look with a shiny surface on the loading cradle area and a ripe finish at the back, all made of plastic. There is also a ripe transparent bit on the front that holds the device you are charging. Vivo brings a special charging mode on its supported phones where the fan will limit itself to 27Db so that your sleep is not disturbed. It will not be nearly as fast, but it does not really matter if you spend your phone overnight anyway.
The back of the charger has a USB-C port so you can safely disconnect cables if needed. Speaking of cables, it’s a little disappointing not to see any cable or power adapter in the charger’s retail packaging, given the retail price of $ 70 (currently up to $ 40).
The wireless charger weighs 196 grams while the X80 Pro’s 80W bundled charger and cable comes in at an additional 150 grams, so if you’re traveling somewhere and want to bring your 50W FlashCharge charger and use its maximum power note, you’ll carry almost 350 grams. gram’s equipment, the phone itself not included.
In our testing we measured 58 minutes for a full charge on the vivo X80 Pro. That’s 8 minutes more than the vivo 50 minute full charge time required. We need to consider the room temperature as a variable that may have changed the results. From our data we can see that the phone reached an 11% charge in just 5 minutes and reached 50% within 27 minutes. The X80 Pro sat at 89% after 50 minutes and reached 100% after 58 minutes.
|
vivo X80 Pro with the vivo 50W Wireless Flash Charger (4,700 mAh) |
|
| 0 minutes | 1% |
| 5 minutes | eleven% |
| 10 minutes | twenty one% |
| 15 minutes | 30% |
| 20 minutes | 38% |
| 25 minutes | 47% |
| 30 min | 55% |
| 35 minutes | 63% |
| 40 minutes | 72% |
| 45 minutes | 80% |
| 50 minutes | 89% |
| 55 minutes | 97% |
| 58 min | 100% |
The charger’s fan was barely audible throughout the charging cycle and did not cause any interference. We did not notice excessive heat coming from the phone during the charging procedure. We also removed the device from the charger as soon as it reached 100% and it was slightly warmer to the touch than in its idle state, but not unbearably hot as after a challenging benchmark session.
For the sake of comparison, we also tried an iQOO 9 Pro – another phone that officially supports the 50W Wireless Flash Charger. The device shares the same 4,700 mAh dual-battery as the vivo X80 Pro. The iQOO 9 Pro has a full 0-100% charge 47 minutes – 13 minutes faster than its vivo X80 Pro cousin. The phone was already at 18% in 10 minutes in the test and reached the 50% mark within 24 minutes. From there, it was smooth with 62% after 30 minutes, 84% in 40 minutes and the full 100% in 47 minutes.
|
iQOO 9 Pro with the vivo 50W wireless flash charger (4 700 mAh) |
|
| 0 minutes | 1% |
| 5 minutes | 9% |
| 10 minutes | 18% |
| 15 minutes | 30% |
| 20 minutes | 41% |
| 25 minutes | 52% |
| 30 min | 62% |
| 35 minutes | 73% |
| 40 minutes | 84% |
| 45 minutes | 95% |
| 47 min | 100% |
Last but not least, we also tested last year’s vivo X70 Pro +, which was the first phone to support 50W wireless FlashCharge charging. It has completed the full charge 70 minutes – 7 slower than the newer vivo X80 Pro and 23 minutes slower than the iQOO 9 Pro. All this while carrying a smaller 4,500 mAh battery, we show the progress that vivo has made in a single generation of flagships.
|
vivo X70 Pro + with the vivo 50W wireless flash charger (4,500 mAh) |
|
| 0 minutes | 1% |
| 5 minutes | 5% |
| 10 minutes | fifteen% |
| 15 minutes | 23% |
| 20 minutes | 31% |
| 25 minutes | 38% |
| 30 min | Four. Five% |
| 35 minutes | 52% |
| 40 minutes | 59% |
| 45 minutes | 67% |
| 50 minutes | 73% |
| 55 minutes | 81% |
| 60 minutes | 88% |
| 65 minutes | 95% |
| 70 minutes | 100% |
So, what are the takeaways from this little experiment? Wireless charging is becoming seriously fast and is slowly creeping up on wired solutions. Unfortunately, there are some barriers to access with all the different custom chargers and power cables that only work with a select few phones from a single manufacturer. Here is a summary of our findings in the form of a graph and we added MagSafe and charging times on an iPhone 12 Pro as a comparison.
So even if your brand new flagship supports 50W wireless charging, you will still have to shell out an additional amount for a specific wireless charger to take advantage of that feature and it will need to be connected with the right cable and plug to work.
At the end of the day, it’s a good thing to have a phone that can fully charge its battery in less than 50 minutes without a plug, and we can only hope that more brands bring this technology to their devices that moving forward. We also hope that manufacturers will work to unify their wireless fast charging solutions so that we do not end up in a situation similar to wired charging where you have to choose between speed and compatibility when buying your chargers.