iPhone 13 Pro Max supports faster 27W charging, but only temporarily
Apple's new iPhone 13 Pro Max can temporarily support higher wattage charging than its predecessor, allowing for the device to reach full battery more quickly.
Credit: Apple
According to tests conducted by ChargerLAB, the iPhone 13 Pro Max can receive up to 27 watts of power when plugged into the right charging adapter. Previously, the charging speeds capped out at about 22 watts.
The iPhone 13 Pro Max won't stay at 27W of power the entire time, however. Testing cited by Twitter user DuanRui indicates that it'll maintain the higher wattage for about 27 minutes. In testing, the device took a total of 86 minutes to fully charge.
In other tests, including some performed by AppleInsider on Wednesday, it appears that the 27W charging only kicks in when a battery is at about 10% capacity and rising. If the battery life is above 40%, it'll charge at around 23 watts.
The higher charging speeds appear to be limited to the iPhone 13 Pro Max model, since DuanRui said that the base iPhone 13 Pro caps out at 20W. The faster charging isn't available with MagSafe or Qi wireless charging, which only supports 15W of charging at most. Users will also need a power adapter that supports charge rates of 9V at three amps.
Users can take advantage of the higher charging speeds with most modern 30W or higher charging bricks.
Read on AppleInsider
Credit: Apple
According to tests conducted by ChargerLAB, the iPhone 13 Pro Max can receive up to 27 watts of power when plugged into the right charging adapter. Previously, the charging speeds capped out at about 22 watts.
The iPhone 13 Pro Max won't stay at 27W of power the entire time, however. Testing cited by Twitter user DuanRui indicates that it'll maintain the higher wattage for about 27 minutes. In testing, the device took a total of 86 minutes to fully charge.
iPhone 13 Pro Max uses a 30W PD charger, which can maintain 26W power for about 27 minutes, and it takes 86 minutes to fully charge. pic.twitter.com/qN67104Sem
-- DuanRui (@duanrui1205)
In other tests, including some performed by AppleInsider on Wednesday, it appears that the 27W charging only kicks in when a battery is at about 10% capacity and rising. If the battery life is above 40%, it'll charge at around 23 watts.
The higher charging speeds appear to be limited to the iPhone 13 Pro Max model, since DuanRui said that the base iPhone 13 Pro caps out at 20W. The faster charging isn't available with MagSafe or Qi wireless charging, which only supports 15W of charging at most. Users will also need a power adapter that supports charge rates of 9V at three amps.
Users can take advantage of the higher charging speeds with most modern 30W or higher charging bricks.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I guess the only things I could do better is charge it on 5W? I wonder if that would have me at 98-100% health?
Fast charging will degrade a battery quicker than low power charging. Just how much more degradation, and how quickly it would occur, is the real question. Charging tech has come a loooong way outside of the garden. Without getting too far into the weeds, here's an easy read look at fast charging that's not from Apple. https://www.androidcentral.com/warp-charge
I, on the other hand, am on the iPhone upgrade program and get the new phone every year so I don’t really care about battery health. In that sense I sort of wish there was a setting that was the opposite of the optimize battery setting. A boost charging setting that would let me charge from 0-100% in 15 minutes like Qualcomm QC 5.0. I’ll take the battery health hit since I’ll have a new phone by the time battery health issues would have started to manifest.
Also, some of "% battery health" is the battery lottery. Batteries are chemical devices. Even with good QC, and the best attempts at making all of them identical, there are still some variances. I build RC battery packs. I might order 20-50 cells of a good brand name (Panasonic, Sony, Samsung) and make sure they are real (not knockoffs). I bin the cells by their capacity. I don't want to put a "lesser" cell in a pack with cells that have more capacity - the pack will trend toward the lowest common denominator, the weakest cell.
Heat is a big battery killer. It can occur when fast charging, leaving in a car, leaving in sunlight, heavy use for extended time (heavy game playing). This most likely affects iPhone batteries more than Apple's charging settings.
Modern fast charging requires chips in the chargers, phones and cables.
Yes, heat and cold can affect battery health and performance but all the fast charging devices I've used have never shown any worrying degradation over time. In fact they have always performed splendidly. So much so that the notion of fast charging and battery health issues have long been forgotten.
Regarding charging rates vs. heat, generally the faster you charge, the more heat that is generated. If the battery is heating up, that will affect longterm battery life. But as you said, most modern devices manage battery charge speed/heat so as to try & not affect the battery's longevity.
They are one and the same in terms of language usage.
One thing everyone should be able to agree on nowadays though is that fast charging really doesn't have a noticeable detrimental effect on most users' batteries and that, of the big companies that have long histories in fast charging, I'd say all of them take the chemical, performance, heat management and safety aspects to a different level.
Then AI is used to fine tune charging and maintenance.
After absolutely abusing my phone in terms of charging (but always using Huawei chargers, external batteries and cables) I only just received a warning from my phone that performance isn't now optimum. It is three years old and gets extensive use 7 days a week. I haven't actually noticed a drop off in performance yet but that in part is due to my wacky charging habits. I really abuse it.
Perfect example - your iPhone is full. if the power brick/supply was doing the charging, it would continue to try & charge the battery, damaging it. It can't - the charger & intelligence is in the device. The brick is purely a power supply.
Same applies to electric vehicles (I own two). Charger is built into the car. The "charger" cable that's connected is merely a power supply/source. I often have to explain this to people...
Whether the charging circuitry is in the phone, the brick, or both, the fast charging occurs at a variable rate... which was the point. That variable rate helps mitigate battery degradation (secondary point) by , among other things, regulating the heat generated by the charging process.
Call it a power supply. S'cool. I'll call it a charging brick. We'll both be okay and we'll both know exactly what the other means.