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This Android phone charges from 0 to 100% in under 10 minutes — and you can’t have it

Ayush Chourasia
By

The charging benchmarks set by Android phones are quite astounding — with some phones being able to charge at 200 watts. If that wasn’t enough, a new Android phone takes it up a notch.

Xiaomi’s newly launched smartphone, the Redmi Note 12 Explorer, brings 210W charging, which is the fastest on any smartphone we’ve seen to date. The proprietary charging tech charges the phone to 66 percent in five minutes and up to 100 percent in about nine minutes. This is extremely impressive considering that the flagship offerings from the likes of Apple and Google take close to two hours for a complete charge.

Xiaomi phone poster
Xiaomi

Power Delivery (PD), which is a common charging standard across USB devices, supports up to 240W of power to charge various gadgets. The standard prescribes 50V at 5A. However, Xiaomi’s charging tech keeps the voltage low at 20W and divides the electricity into three channels of 70W each (20V at 3.5A each). For safety measures, the channels are built to sustain up to 100W of power.

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If you’re guessing that Xiaomi uses a massive charger for the same, that’s actually wrong. Thanks to GaN technology, the charger is fairly small in size; it measures 67.3 x 64.3 x 30mm. For those unaware, Gallium Nitride (or GaN) is a material that produces less heat while charging — thus allowing chargers to be more compact, lightweight, and energy-efficient than regular silicon-based chargers.

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The supplied USB cable has an E-mark chip, without which the charger cannot attain its full potential. In the case of the Redmi Note 12 Explorer, the charger can spit out 210W power, however, with other devices, it can only do 65W via USB-PD.

210W charging tech poster.
210W charging tech on Redmi Note 12 Explorer Xiaomi

While this charging tech is undeniably impressive, it’s unlikely that we will see it in the U.S. anytime soon. We say that because Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi do not operate in the U.S. The best we’ve seen for U.S. handsets is the OnePlus 10T, which tops out at 125W charging. That’s still impressive, but it’s a far cry from Xiaomi’s 210W.

The state of other flagship phones — such as the Galaxy S22 Ultra, Pixel 7 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max — is even worse. There isn’t a lot of expectation from U.S. smartphone giants for charging speed, even as brands outside of the U.S. keep pushing the envelope further.

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Ayush Chourasia
Ayush Chourasia
Mobile Writer
Ayush works as an independent tech journalist. He has been writing since 2018 and has worked with publications like India…
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