Some smartphones charge at incredibly fast speeds, going from 0% to 100% in 10 minutes. This is one area where Apple and the iPhone have fallen far behind. The iPhone 15 series charges at 27W while MagSafe charging peaks at 15W. With a 20W charger such as the one Apple sells for $19 in its online store, all four iPhone 15 models can charge to 50% in 30 minutes. That matches the capabilities of the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 13.
A report from ITHome says that Apple is going to be raising charging speeds on the upcoming iPhone 16 series from 27W to 40W, a 48.1% increase. And MagSafe charging will rise 33% from 15W to 20W. While these increases won’t all of a sudden allow iPhones to charge as fast as those handsets out of China that go from 0% to 100% in minutes, iPhone users should be able to notice some difference.
Interestingly, the only phone forecast to drop in capacity size is the battery on the iPhone 16 Plus. This seems a little strange since the iPhone 14 Plus had a 4325mAh battery which slightly beat out the 4323 capacity on the iPhone 14 Pro Max battery giving it the largest iPhone battery of all time at that point. This year, the iPhone 15 Pro Max battery capacity of 4441mAh beat out the 4383mAh capacity of the battery powering the iPhone 15 Plus.
The 240W charging speed on the Realme GT Neo 5 allows the phone to fully charge in 10 minutes. |Image credit-Realme
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra battery weighs in at 5000mAh. We should point out that differences between iOS and Android invalidate direct comparisons in the battery size of the cell inside the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. As for charging speed, the Galaxy S24 Ultra charges as fast as 45W. In 30 minutes you can have 69% of the battery charged up and in 65 minutes the device can be fully charged.
What about the Pixel 8 Pro? The battery in the Pixel 8 Pro has a capacity of 5050mAh while it charges up to 30W (wired). Using the 30W PD (Power Delivery) brick available in the Google Store, the phone charges in 90 minutes. Wireless charging takes place at a peak speed of 23W on the Pixel 8 Pro.
Almost every year there is a rumor about a higher charging speed for the iPhone and most of the time the rumor doesn’t pan out. It is time for Apple to start slowly moving this rate higher. Erring on the side of being conservative as always, the iPhone might never be innovative when it comes to its battery charging speed, but that doesn’t mean it can’t try to close the gap every now and then with those phones coming out of China.