We test the world's fastest charging phone

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We test the world's fastest charging phone
Just think about these words and phrases - Dash, Warp, Vooc, SuperCharge - what do they tell you? Marketing names for the ultrafast phone charging technology of Oppo, OnePlus, Huawei and the likes, of course. 

Xiaomi, however, has now one-upped them all with the HyperCharge technology that delivers 120W of ultrafast charging goodness, and it has been doing it since last year's Mi 10 Ultra for China. That one has a 4500mAh battery that the 120W brick in the box is able to charge for about 21 minutes .

Enter the Xiaomi 11T Pro specs which were announced this week, and we had the chance to test its top-up speeds as not only does it sport the same 120W charging abilities but will also be available globally to purchase.

Behold the world's fastest charging phone battery, that of the Xiaomi 11T Pro


The phone has a combined 5000mAh battery capacity, split between two 2500mAh units. This is the secret of such fast charging phones, as their power supply and and controllers are able to pump both units full of electrons at once, achieving a much faster collective time than if it was a one huge 5000mAh pack. According to Xiaomi's Daniel Desjarlais:

"It’s like having two different inlets to fill the gas in your car and two separate tanks. Now, rather than filling at a certain slow rate on one side, you can fill up two at the same time. This is all done on the side of the phone, the charger outputs 120 watts and rather than trying to push the maximum of five volts, a single channel splits it into two, three, four channels. This allows us to increase everything — everything is done at 20 amperes."

Actually, 100W is the limit of what the current USB-C Power Delivery standard can offer, while 120W is almost double what the other powerful phone chargers out there offer, like the 65W of the OnePlus 9 Pro, for instance.

Xiaomi accounts for the energy loses on the way, though, and the actual power reaching the batteries of the 11T Pro is within the realm of the USB-C Power Delivery standard still. So, how fast does the world's fastest charging phone charge (try saying this 3 times fast)? 

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We ran the test and have the answer to the life, universe, and everything, and it's 25.

Full ChargeLower is better
Xiaomi 11T Pro0h 25 min
OPPO Find X3 Pro0h 29 min
OnePlus 9 Pro0h 30 min
ZTE Axon 30 5G0h 45 min
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra1h 8 min
Samsung Galaxy S21+1h 10 min
Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max1h 58 min
Apple iPhone 12 Pro1h 58 min
Google Pixel 51h 33 min

That's a new record in our phone charging tests database, made even more impressive by the fact that the phone has 5000mAh of total battery capacity, while the OnePlus, Oppo, and ZTE all have smaller units.

Granted, Xiaomi cites even faster, 17 minutes to a full charge, but with the disclaimer "charging data tested in Xiaomi Internal Labs from 2% - 100%," whereas we test the phones from a completely depleted state unless they turn off at 2%, and then not in a turned off state that nobody charges their phones in.

If you are worried about the state of the battery after many moons of charging with such speeds, don't be. One, after many years and billions of investments, Chinese battery companies are at the forefront of the technology, and, two, because Xiaomi says so.


The company outed these neat graphics you see above to explain how careful the batteries' thermal management system is when controlling for the charging power of the 11T Pro adapter that Xiaomi provides in the box.


When all is said and done, Xiaomi's the surprise winner in fast charging technology, and nowhere is that more visible than in its current record holder the 11T Pro. The 25 minutes to full 5000mah charge are rather incredible, plus Xiaomi says that the battery is able to retain 80% of its capacity after 800 cycles. 

That makes the 11T Pro compliant with the upcoming EU regulations on phone batteries. For comparison, Apple still cites 500 cycles for the same battery capacity retention in its iPhones.

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