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iPhone X and iPhone 8 support fast charging, but it comes at a price

2017 September 13
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One place iPhone has seriously lagged behind Android is wireless charging, which Android has supported for years. It took until now for Apple’s smartphone to receive it and the same can be said for a convenient fast-charge option.

This cool technology now lets you charge your new iPhone from 0-50 percent in 30 minutes.

Fast charging is supported in not only the flagship iPhone X models, but the iPhone 8 series as well.

Apple says that if starting from a fully depleted battery, you can gain 50 percent in around half an hour. Considering how long an iPhone battery typically lasts, you are gaining hours of functionality with just a very short charge.

Unfortunately, you cannot use the included USB-A cable or power brick to achieve this.

This exclusion is patently Apple—they don’t include a wireless charger either (in the past, you could always charge your phone faster using a third-party charger or an iPad charger). That’s because Apple’s included charger only supports 1A though they will happily sell you a stronger one that can charge at 2.1A.

To use fast charging, you need Apple’s own USB-C Lightning cable (because currently only Apple makes these) and also a USB-C wall brick (Apple has a few of them for their line of MacBooks that use USB-C).

The cost for this really start to add up when you look at it.

Apple’s cable is $25. Then, Apple’s cheapest USB-C charger currently sold on the online store is $49 for a 29W variant. From what we’ve heard, you need a ~18W USB-C charger to use the fast charge option.

This is obviously something we will have to look at closer when the new phones launch to find out for sure. Luckily, a variety of third parties create great USB-C wall chargers, like Anker, for much less than Apple.

If you do go with Apple’s option, you are looking at $74 just to charge your phone faster. Maybe we will get lucky and Apple will soon start to allow others to create MFi-approved Lightning to USB-C cables, and drive prices down.

Thoughts?

Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/09/13/iphone-x-iphone-8-fast-charging/

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