Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 announced: A deep dive into Quick Charge 5!

No one likes to wait for things.. Your smartphone phone is awesome but waiting to charge your smartphone battery is a drag. Qualcomm Quick Charge is designed to charge your smartphone faster than a conventional charger.

In terms of speed, Qualcomm boasts that Quick Charge 5 can power up a 4,500mAh battery to 50% in just 5 minutes and will reach full in less than 15 minutes. That’s a tad faster than Oppo’s 125W solution, but we’re talking by mere minutes here. Qualcomm also touts that version 5 is up to 10°C (50° F) cooler, 70% more efficient, and up to 4x faster than its predecessor.

However, the exact speeds on offer depend on the implementation inside any given device. Quick Charge 5 supports a variety of input voltages and currents. These range from 3.3V to 20V, with 3A, 5A, and greater than 5A of current supported with the right USB cables.

This is all cross-compatible with USB Power Delivery, which Qualcomm uses for device-to-device communication and power handshakes.

Not to be outdone by its younger sibling, Quick Charge 3 technology will soon be available in wireless charging pads – marking the debut of Quick Charge technology in the exciting wireless charging arena and expanding Quick Charge’s advantages to even more people.

Overall, Quick Charge 5 is a promising upgrade for those clamoring for ever-faster charge times. The fact that it’s not a gated standard, remains backward compatible, and works with USB Power Delivery helps prevent further fragmentation of the USB-C charging ecosystem.

Devices supporting the new standard will appear later in the year, with Xiaomi tipped by Qualcomm to be one of the first onboard.