Vivo’s new charging tech rockets phone your battery to full in only 13 minutes

By Andy Boxall June 26, 2019

Vivo V15 Pro impressions — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Vivo has made another leap forward in battery charging technology with the introduction of Super FlashCharge 120w, which is capable of sending enough power through to your phone’s battery cell to recharge it in only 13 minutes. The new system has been introduced at MWC Shanghai, which is currently taking place in China.

The name gives away part of the reason Super FlashCharge is so powerful — it delivers 120w of power to compatible phones and batteries, using a specially customized USB Type-C cable, and a Super FlashCharge travel charger wall plug. The system works on 20v/6A. In its tests, Vivo says a 4,000mAh battery has been recharged from zero to 100% in only 13 minutes, with 50% coming up in an almost unfeasibly quick five minutes.

Vivo, along with Oppo and OnePlus which are part of the same parent company, are no strangers to incredibly fast recharge times. Oppo’s 50w Super VOOC charging system it introduced on the Find X Lamborghini Edition took the battery from zero to full in under 35 minutes, which remains faster than the competition even now.

oppo find x lamborghini supervooc charger — Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

However, Super VOOC operates at 10v/5A, an aspect Vivo has bettered for Super FlashCharge 120w. Phones that use Super VOOC have two battery cells, which are charged in parallel by the system. It’s not known yet whether Super FlashCharge does the same.

Similar technology is also used by OnePlus for the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition which will recharge the battery to 50% in about 20 minutes. This puts the 13-minutes-to-full charge time possible with Super FlashCharge into context. All three companies have always been conscious of safety with its fast charging systems, ensuring fail-safes and temperature management features are all present inside the charging block, so there should be no concerns over Super FlashCharge’s reliability or safety.

While Vivo has revealed Super FlashCharge and its stunning ability, it has not said when the first phone with the feature will be sold. It took several years for Super VOOC to arrive on Oppo’s Find X Lamborghini Edition, after all. Vivo sells its smartphones in Asia, Europe, and most recently the U.K. too; but it does not officially release them in the U.S.

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Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

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