The development of mobile devices is moving towards increasing the power and energy capacity of their batteries. Technologies such as Qualcomm Quick Charge (QC) for devices based on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, which will be discussed below, can help compensate for the time spent on charging such devices.
Qualcomm Quick Charge is an intelligent battery charge management technology. According to Qualcomm, this technology is fast and reliable. Let's look at what tools confirm this.
As of today, QC has four development versions. The latest version was introduced in 2017, it is Quick Charge 4+, which is adopted by the latest flagships with an Qualcomm processor. However, the most widespread version is QC 3.0, as even this year (2020), smartphones are being released with top-level support for QC 3.0 only.
The prerequisite for the creation of fast charging for devices was the introduction of the USB Power Delivery standard in 2012, which expanded the capabilities of the USB connector, specifically the ability to deliver current up to 5A at a maximum of 20V (100W). Qualcomm immediately introduced its first version of QC, capable of delivering 2A current with a voltage of up to 6.3V.
The next generation QC allowed charging the device 1.5 times faster than the previous version, with the current increasing to 3A and the voltage selectable among 5V, 9V, 12V, and 20V. An additional technology introduced in QC 2.0, was Dual Charge – splitting the charging current into two power management integrated circuits (PMICs) to reduce the temperature of the charging device.
QC 3.0 selects a voltage in the range of 3.6V to 22V with a 200 mV step, and the current reaches 2.6 A or 4.6 A. INOV (Intelligent Negotiation for Optimal Voltage), an intelligent polling algorithm, was added to determine the optimal voltage for maximum efficiency. Additionally, improvements were made to: battery preservation technology, HVDCP (a special high-voltage charging port), and Dual Charge+ (the system became 7-8 degrees C cooler than the previous version). QC 3.0 has become almost twice as efficient as QC 1.0.
The fourth version of QC is the latest charging solution from Qualcomm, offering 2.5 times faster charging compared to the first version. This is achieved through the enhancement of all the aforementioned technologies from previous versions. The current and voltage characteristics have remained almost at the same level, with only the voltage regulation step changing to 20 mV. Additionally, full compatibility with the USB Power Delivery 3.0 standard has been added.
The listed technologies and their development with the change of generations QC are undoubtedly advantages in using this fast charging. However, the disadvantages include:
While the latest (fourth) version of QC technology remains expensive, the range of REAL-EL chargers has introduced models supporting Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0:
This car charger will save you even on the road!
You can find the list of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors that support various versions of Quick Charge technology on the Qualcomm website via the link: https://www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon/processors/comparison
However, you can confirm whether your mobile device truly supports Quick Charge only on the manufacturer's website or in the device manual.