Quick Charge 4.0 rumored to support 28W for even faster charging

We’re still yet to learn about what Qualcomm has in store for its next generation Snapdragon 830 mobile processor, but a new version of Quick Charge seems like a safe bet. According to sources who spoke with fudzilla, Quick Charge 4.0 will be Qualcomm’s most powerful fast charging solution to date, increasing support for charging power up to a huge 28 watts.

Allegedly, Quick Charge 4.0 will feature changes made to the maximum amount of current pushed to batteries, with 5V charging increasing to 5.6A, giving us 28W worth of power. The source also states that a 9V/4A option will be supported, but this would double Quick Charge’s existing power smartphone output to a huge 36W. 9V/3A seems more plausible for phones (up from 9V/1.7A), although Quick Charge does already support up to 36W with its 12V solution for laptops and high power batteries.

Currently, Quick Charge 3.0 supports 18W for phones across a range of voltages from 3.2 to 20V in 200mV increments, using the company’s Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV) technology. It seems likely that Qualcomm will want to keep this flexibility to charge larger devices like laptops as well as phones. Quick Charge 2.0 also supported up to 18W across 5, 9, and 12V stages. That being said, 3.0 saw charging speeds increase slightly due to efficiency savings and revised charging patterns. For comparison, Oppo’s VOOC passes up to 20W of power, and HUAWEI’s Super Charge tops out at 22.5W, so the new version of Quick Charge could surpass everything that’s currently on the market.

It appears that Qualcomm has found some way to increase the amount of energy that can be transferred to a battery, without causing excessive heat or battery damage, which may be related to better INOV management. Regardless, a leap up to 28W peak would represent a notable boost to battery charging times.

While fast charging smartphones are great for us power users, the huge range of charging standards now available on the market has recently caused Google to take action. In the future, Android may require that all USB Type-C devices support the fast charging standards already included in the USB specification. It remains to be see what this means for proprietary technologies like Quick Charge.

Handsets powered by the Snapdragon 830 and possibly featuring Quick Charge 4.0 are expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2017.