Tag Archives: Charger

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Charging Speed @ 15W, 25W, 45W!

Take a look at the battery charging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and find out how fast you can recharge with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Supports Up To 45W Charging!

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box. You can either use the standard 15 watt fast charger from your previous Samsung smartphone, or purchase a 25 watt or 45 watt super fast charger.

Best To Use Samsung Fast Charger

You can use non-Samsung fast chargers, but while they may charge your Galaxy S24 Ultra, they will likely not charge at full speed.

For example, I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 65W and 96W PD fast chargers, but they failed to charge faster than 25 watts. It would only charge beyond 25 watts with an official Samsung 45W fast charger… 🙁

How To Tell If You’re Charging At Full Speed

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn’t make clear how fast you are charging, so how do you know if you are charging fast enough?

When you plug in the charger, the charging protocol will flash for a few seconds on the display of your Galaxy S24 Ultra:

Fast charging : you’re charging at up to 15 watts
Super fast charging : you’re charging at up to 25 watts
Super fast charging 2.0 : you’re charging at up to 45 watts

How To Activate Fast Charging

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has fast charging enabled by default. But if you are using a Samsung fast charger, and it somehow isn’t charging at full speed, here is how you can verify if fast charging is enabled.

Go to Settings > Battery > Charging settings
Make sure Fast charging is enabled.
If not, tap on Fast charging to enable it.

Please note that this setting cannot be changed while the Galaxy S24 Ultra is charging. You will need to pull out the cable before making any changes.

You Must Use Correct Cable

Samsung fast charging protocols also require you to comply with minimum cable requirements:

25W super fast charging : 3A cable minimum
45W super fast charging 2.0 : 5A cable minimum

The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the Samsung EP-DN980, which is USB-C to USB-C cable that supports up to 5A of current. So this cable will readily support 45W charging.

In the next section, we will look at how fast the Galaxy S24 Ultra charges with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Charging Speed @ 15W, 25W, 45W!

We tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using the official 15W, 25W and 45W Samsung fast chargers, and the results are really surprising!

Galaxy S24 Ultra	Charging Time	Charging Speed
15 Watts	106.5 minutes	37.6 mAh per min.
25 Watts	68 minutes	58.8 mAh per min.
45 Watts	66 minutes	60.6 mAh per min.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.

Unfortunately, upgrading to the 45 watt charger doesn’t improve its charging speed much. It only shaved 2 minutes off the charging time with a 25 watt charger!

In fact, that’s actually its best time. On two other occasions, it charged slower than the 25 watt charger! Really quite unexpected.

Just in case you are wondering – it does charge at 45 watts, but only at the beginning for a short time. After that it charged at between 12 watts to 24 watts for most of the charge.

With such results, I can only recommend purchasing the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:

Buy in US : Charger only | Charger + cable
Buy in UK : Charger + cable | Charger + cable
Buy in SG : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
Buy in MY : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only

Don’t bother getting the 45 watt charger, unless you want to recharge your laptop, or power bank at a faster speed.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Price + Colour Options

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in four main colours:

Titanium Black
Titanium Gray
Titanium Violet, and
Titanium Yellow

Here are the official launch prices for the three available storage capacities:

256 GB : US$1,299.99 | £1,249 | A$2,199 | S$1,928 | RM6,299
512 GB : US$1,419.99 | £1,349 | A$2,399 | S$2,128 | RM6,799
1 TB : US$1,659 | £1,549 | A$2,799 | S$2,428 | RM7,799

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Battery + Charging Review!

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Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Refresh Rate Affects Battery Life!

The new Samsung Galaxy S23 FE offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:

Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate

By default, the Galaxy S23 FE uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.

On investigation, I found that the Galaxy S23 FE’s display only switches between the 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rate, when set to the Adaptive mode.

In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy S23 FE’s battery life.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Battery Life Comparison!

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with a larger 4,500 mAh battery, which is 15% larger than the 3,900 mAh battery in the Galaxy S23!

To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.

We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.

We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :

Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE lasted almost 10.5 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and almost lasted 11 hours with the Standard refresh mode!

In other words – it does not make (battery) sense to switch to the Standard refresh mode. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in battery life.

Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.

Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 11 hours.

As this comparison shows, the Galaxy S23 FE isn’t quite as efficient as Samsung’s flagship devices like the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra. But it’s close enough.

Work 3.0	S23 Ultra	S22 Ultra	Z Flip 5	S23 FE
Battery Capacity	5,000 mAh	5,000 mAh	3,700 mAh	4,500 mAh
Battery Life	15 hrs 18 mins	14 hrs 15 mins	11 hrs 4 mins	10 hrs 57 mins
Utilisation per min.	4.36 mAh	4.68 mAh	4.46 mAh	5.48 mAh

Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)

But its Adaptive refresh rate is surprisingly so efficient, it actually uses (slightly) less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip5 smartphones. With a slightly larger battery, it actually lasted more than an hour longer than the Galaxy Z Flip5!

In fact, it’s so efficient that it almost matches the battery life of the S22 Ultra, which has a 28% larger battery!

Needless to say – we are highly recommending you stick with the Adaptive refresh mode for the Galaxy S23 FE!

Work 3.0	S23 Ultra	S22 Ultra	S23 FE	Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity	5,000 mAh	5,000 mAh	4,500 mAh	3,700 mAh
Battery Life	13 hrs 0 mins	10 hrs 38 mins	10 hrs 20 mins	9 hrs 9 mins
Utilisation per min.	5.13 mAh	6.27 mAh	5.81 mAh	5.39 mAh

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Battery Recharging Speed!

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.

So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.

Work 3.0	S22 Ultra	S23 FE	S23 Ultra	S23 FE	Z Flip 5	Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity	5,000 mAh	4,500 mAh	5,000 mAh	4,500 mAh	3,700 mAh	3,700 mAh
Charger Output	15 watts	25 watts	15 watts	15 watts	25 watts	15 watts
Battery Life	64.5 min	73 min	88.8 min	96 min	105 min	129.5 min
Recharging Speed (per minute)	62.0 mAh	49.3 mAh	45.0 mAh	37.5 mAh	28.2 mAh	22.9 mAh

Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.5 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just under one hour and 15 minutes with a 25 watt charger.

This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 6.5:1, which is pretty good. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 9.25 minutes you recharge.

If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by 23 minutes, and give you an hour of battery life for every 8.5 minutes you recharge:

Buy in US : Charger only | Charger + cable
Buy in UK : Charger + cable | Charger + cable
Buy in SG : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
Buy in MY : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only

Samsung Galaxy S23 Fan Edition Price + Availability

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:

6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB

These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :

8 GB + 128 GB : RM2,999 (approx. US$633 / £519 / A$998)
8 GB + 256 GB : RM3,299 (approx. US$699 / £571 / A$1,098)

Here are some online purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE:

United States : Amazon | Amazon
United Kingdom : Amazon
Australia : Amazon | Amazon |Amazon
Malaysia : Shopee | Shopee

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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OPPO To Stop Providing Free Chargers Next Year!

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OPPO will stop providing free chargers with their smartphones, starting next year! Here is what you need to know…

OPPO To Stop Providing Free Chargers Next Year!

OPPO is giving up one of its key advantages over its competitors next year – its high-performance charger, which is included with every smartphone.

While announcing their new Reno8 smartphone, OPPO Vice President for Overseas Sales and Services, Billy Zhang, revealed that it would stop providing in-box chargers starting next year. Instead, OPPO will provide them as optional purchases in stores.

OPPO won’t immediately stop providing in-box chargers, but will phase them out in stages. So expect them to retain the in-box chargers for the higher-end models at least for some time, as a way to differentiate from cheaper models.

But the message is clear – eventually, all OPPO smartphones will stop coming with in-box chargers.

If you are an OPPO fan, make sure you keep your VOOC / SuperVOCC charger. Your next OPPO smartphone may not come with one.

OPPO To Lose Advantage By Not Including Free Chargers

While many brands have followed Apple in not including chargers in the box of new smartphones, OPPO made the smart move by continuing the provide them.

One of the key advantages OPPO has over the other brands is its VOOC series of fast charging technologies, like 125 watt SuperVOOC wired charging and 65 watt AirVOOC wireless charging.

These are proprietary technologies that only work with the provided in-box chargers, so OPPO really needed to provide them in every box.

You can still charge OPPO smartphones with USB chargers from other brands, because they still support standard USB charging technologies. They will just charge slowly. Without the in-box charger, OPPO smartphones will lose their key advantage over their Android rivals.

Sure, OPPO will make sure you can buy their special VOOC charger in store, and will probably include one as a pre-order or early bird sweetener. But this decision will turn OPPO into yet another Android brand.

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger + AA Batteries Review!

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In my review of the EBL lithium-ion AA batteries and 8-bay charger, I will share with you why this is the future of AA batteries!

EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger + AA Batteries Review!

The future of AA batteries is here, and it comes in the form of EBL lithium-ion AA batteries, and the 8-bay Li-Ion battery charger!

Most of us have long relied on rechargeable AA batteries using NiCad (Nickel-Cadmium) and NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) technologies which were developed in the 1980s.

They are set to be replaced by AA batteries built on lithium-ion technology – the same kind of battery used in your smartphone and laptops.

So I was most excited when EBL said that they would send me their latest lithium-ion AA batteries and 8-bay Li-Ion battery charger to try out.

EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger + AA Batteries : What’s In The Box?

EBL sent me their most popular AA battery bundle, which consists of an 8-bay Li-Ion battery charger, and eight of their lithium-ion AA batteries. They also offer them for sale as separate items.

The package arrived in a simple black plastic bag – there is no special bundle packaging. EBL would do well to add bubble wrapping to prevent damage to the box, and pilfering from the package.

There are the items that you will receive if you purchase the EBL 8-bay Li-Ion battery charger and 8-battery bundle :

1 x EBL 8-bay Lithium-Ion Battery Charger
1 set of EBL Lithium-Ion Battery Charger + Lithium Ion Battery manuals
1 x USB Type A to micro-USB Type B power cable
8 x EBL Lithium-Ion AA batteries
2 x AA battery storage cases

EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger Review!

The EBL 8-Bay lithium-ion charger has a pretty simple design. It has 8 battery bays, supporting up to eight AA or AAA lithium-ion batteries, or a mix of them.

However, please note that this charger only supports lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. Please do not use it to recharge your NiCd / NiMH rechargeable batteries!

Every bay has a separate circuit, allowing for optimal charging according to each battery’s condition. It is also smart enough to prevent over-charging, over-voltage, over-current and overheating while charging.

That said, EBL recommends that you take out the batteries once they are fully-charged, and do not leave them in the charger. Trickle-charging lithium-ion batteries is not good for their lifespan.

I would also recommend that you disconnect the charger after use, because it will use up to 0.3 watts of power even when it’s not charging any battery. That “vampire power loss” may seem little, but it is still a waste of power.

Power input comes through the very common Type A to micro-USB cable. In 2022, I would have very much preferred a bidirectional USB Type C connector. But this is a minor inconvenience – you won’t generally remove the cable unless you are travelling.

The 8-bay charger has a 10 watt power input, delivering up to 1.25 watts per bay when fully-loaded with eight batteries, and up to 1.5 watt per bay with fewer batteries.

However, EBL does not provide a 10 watt USB power adaptor to actually power this 8-bay lithium-ion battery charger. So you will need to purchase a separate USB power adaptor, or use the one that came with your smartphone.

Just make sure the USB power adaptor can deliver 10 watts or more. Otherwise, charging will be much slower.

Specifications	EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger
Model	EBL M7012
Type	USB Charger
Battery Size	AA / AAA
Battery Type	Only 1.5V Lithium-Ion
Input Voltage	DC 5V @ 2A
Input Power	10 W
No-Load Input Power	0.3 W max.
Output Voltage	DC 1.5 V @ 1 A
Output Current	AA : 1000 mA max. AAA : 500 mA max.
Dimensions	126.4 mm wide 75.4 mm high 25.2 mm thick
Weight	94.9 grams

EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion AA Batteries Review!

The EBL lithium-ion AA batteries work like any other rechargeable AA batteries. Just plug them into any device that requires AA batteries, and they just work.

These lithium-ion batteries have a capacity of 3,000 mWh, which is equivalent to 2,000 mAh. So they are equivalent in capacity to many NiMH batteries, but about 18% lower than top-shelf Eneloop Pro batteries.

EBL claims that they have a low self-discharge like Eneloop batteries, and will retain up to 80% of its capacity 3 years after it’s fully-charged. But they do not come pre-charged, because so you will need to charge them for 6-8 hours before using them.

The biggest advantage of the EBL lithium-ion AA battery though is its ability to deliver 1.5 volts of constant current. This beats NiCad and NiMH batteries which are limited to just 1.2-1.4 volts.

Even though these batteries have similar capacities to NiCad/NiMH batteries, their higher voltage means they deliver 7% to 25% more power.

That extra power is useful when it comes to certain devices, like Nerf guns or electric toothbrushes for example. You will get higher performance with these 1.5 volt lithium-ion batteries than you would with NiCad / NiMH batteries.

Specifications	EBL Lithium-Ion AA Battery
Size	AA
Type	Lithium-Ion
Capacity	3000 mWh 2000 mAh
Discharge Voltage	1.5 V ± 2%
Low Voltage Warning	1.1 V ± 2%
Standard Charging Time	≤ 2.5 hours
Standard Discharge Time	≥ 5 hours
Charging Voltage	5.0 V ~ 5.5 V
Recommended Discharge Current	0.2 C (400 mA)
Maximum Discharge Current	1 C
Overcurrent Protection Limit	800 mA
Overcurrent Discharge / Short Circuit Limit	2.1 A ~ 2.8 A
Low Temperature Charging Protection	0 ℃ : ≤ 150 mA -10 ℃ : ≤ 100 mA
Static Power Consumption	≤ 100 μA
Dimensions	50.1 mm tall 14.1 mm wide
Weight	20 grams

EBL 8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger + AA Batteries : Price + Availability

The EBL 8-Bay lithium-ion charger can be purchased separately, or together with AA batteries, at these official price points :

8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger + 8 AA batteries : US$45.99
8-Bay Lithium-Ion Charger only : US$13.59
8 x Lithium-Ion AA Batteries : US$28.99

Here are some online purchase options :

EBL Direct : $45.99 (use Welcome for 10% off)
Amazon : $45.99

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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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Xiaomi Disses 15W MagSafe With 80W Mi Wireless Charging!

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Just after Apple introduced their 15W MagSafe wireless charger, Xiaomi unveils the 80W Mi Wireless Charger!

Take a look at how fast a modified Mi 10 Pro recharged wirelessly using this new 80W wireless charger!

Xiaomi Disses 15W MagSafe With 80W Mi Wireless Charger!

Apple may have wowed their fans with the new 15W MagSafe wireless charger, but Xiaomi just showed us the future of wireless charging.

Introducing the new 80W Mi Wireless Charging Technology by Xiaomi!

As this video showed, the 80W Mi Wireless Charging Technology recharges the 4,000 mAh battery of a modified Mi 10 Pro astoundingly quickly :

0% to 10% : 1 minute
0% to 50% : 8 minutes
0% to 100% : 19 minutes

In comparison, last year’s 30W Mi Wireless Charging Technology took much longer to recharge a similar battery :

0% to 50% : 25 minutes
0% to 100% : 69 minutes

80W Mi Wireless Charging : May It Come Soon!

Xiaomi has not announced when they will actually introduce 80W Mi Wireless Charging in a production smartphone, or offer the charger for sale.

However, based on the fact that they recently introduced the Mi 10 Ultra with 50W wireless charging capability, we could see 80W wireless charging introduced as early as next year!

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