Earlier this year when Qualcomm announced their new Snapdragon 600 and 800 series quad-core mobile processors, one awesome feature was Quick Charge. Sadly we’ve recently learned this additional layer to improve battery life and recharge time was left out of HTC’s flagship One smartphone. Even though their HTC DROID DNA enjoys new technology.
You may be asking yourself what Quick Charge is, and we have all the details right here. Qualcomm explained it in detail back in February on their blog. Explaining that newer devices with their Snapdragon S4 and above (Galaxy S III, DROID DNA, Nexus 4, and more) all charge faster than devices without Quick Charge. Basically less time near a wall, and more time enjoying your smartphone.
Quick Charge is a rapid charging technology that lets devices charge nearly 40% faster. So that GALAXY S 4 will take under 3 hours to charge 100%, vs 4 hours with older devices with a similar sized battery. The important part here being that this feature is a part of an integrated solution in the power management chip on Qualcomm Snapdragon devices, from there, it’s up to the manufacturer to support and allow Quick Charge to work. Most do, even HTC, but with the HTC One they left this impressive feature out.
Rapid charging isn’t new, but the way Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors power management handles it is what makes this a unique feature for Snapdragon-based devices. Quick Charge 1.0 allows their PMIC to accept nearly 10 watts of power via USB, and their new Snapdragon 800 can accept 60w and charge devices 75% faster.
So while the Samsung Galaxy S III, GALAXY S 4, Nexus 4, even HTC’s DROID DNA, and nearly 70 other Snapdragon devices has this feature, oddly HTC decided to leave it out. Quick Charge is hardware based that needs to be supported by the devices micro-USB port, then the Qualcomm processor does the rest. Maybe this was a cost cutting feature, we’re not sure, but for some reason or another HTC left it out of their One smartphone. We’ve confirmed this with our own tests where the One takes significantly longer to fully charge 100% than the GALAXY S 4 with a bigger battery. HTC PR has also confirmed the One doesn’t support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge feature.
This could also be a feature HTC chose to disable to possibly prolong the life of their non-removable battery. So how are you liking your HTC One, and have you noticed the recharge rate isn’t as fast as some devices you’ve used in the past?
Quick Charge will reduce the longevity of the battery.
Are you just saying that, or do you have any proof?
It’s just science behind Lithium Ion (also applies to LiPo) batteries.
He doesn’t need proof. All batteries have limited charging cycles. Eventually they get old and can no longer provide power to a device, no matter how long you charge it.
The faster Quick-Charge charges the battery the sooner it will have to be unplugged and start to lose juice, cutting it down by one cycle faster than usual. So 40% faster charging time could roughly translate to 40% less battery lifespan.
Actually, your calculation is UTTERLY WRONG. The 40% refers only to the charging time, which is NOT the same as time spent between charging.
That have to include the amount of time it is in use before it needs to be charged again. And in this case, I doubt if the person still needs to charge MORE than once a day, just that it charged quicker and he/she saved on the one or two hour of down time. So in the end, the battery life won’t be impacted. Of course, this is only talking about number of charges the battery can support. I am not sure if anyone has done any testing on the effect rapid charging have on the battery life itself.
You misunderstood. I said it would affect the battery’s lifeSPAN, meaning the overall amount of charge cycles it has until it can no longer hold a charge. I never said anything about it affecting battery life.
What I said was that by decreasing the charging time it allows the device to attain 100% faster which will prompt the user to unplug sooner and in turn lower the amount of cycles it can perform than a device without Quick-Charge. The non-removable battery makes this more of an issue still.
Obviously though, this is less of a concern with larger batteries.
Actually, you are true Shen Ye. So HTC purposely chose not to go since ONE isnt the one to fiddle around and change the battery all by ureself. Good move HTC!
Yes I’ve noticed it’s slower, no I don’t care – it lasts throughout the day plus a good amount (40%+ remaining) so I’m not concerned with how long it takes to charge.
Agreed. I typically will drop it on a charger overnight, so whether it takes 4 hours or 8 hours to charge, it’s got a full charge when I wake up and would last probably a good 24-36 hours on moderate usage for me.
Idk, my One charges at least as fast as my One X+ did, and it has a slightly bigger battery. Both are slow to be sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s worse than the One X+.
The point is precisely that … HTC One X+ did not have quick charge did it? Thus both of them are slow. Question is WHY?
I love this phone! Just got it a couple weeks ago but I only charge it once every two days on moderate use. 3 when I’m being conservative. And snappy & smooth!
As far as I am concerned, I love this phone from every angle and feature.! Charging time is good if used with a 1A+ USB Charger. Even though I use the stock one. No qualms with this phone. My best purchase 🙂
I wonder if this is disabled by missing hardware on the board or via software? Normally the long charge doesn’t bother me but it’s annoying to have it on charge & still see the battery decreasing when playing a game like N.O.V.A or Ravensword: Shadowlands. Bit of a shock coming off my iPhone 4 that would charge like a beast regardless of what I was playing to having the battery drain even whilst charging. It does have overall better battery life though.
This is false information. HTC One does support quick charging.
Apparently not. I can’t charge faster than 1A. If you can do otherwise, please tell me how 🙂