Fast charging a lie?

[rmoliv]

I purchased today from Apple the 29W USB-C Power Adapter and the Lighting to USB-C cable to fast charge my iPhone 8 Plus. It took it more than 60min to get from 46% to 100%. Is that supposed to be fast or am I missing something here? I plugged it into a power strip, could that be the reason why the fast charging was not that fast?

 

[The Game 161]

I purchased today from Apple the 29W USB-C Power Adapter and the Lighting to USB-C cable to fast charge my iPhone 8 Plus. It took it more than 60min to get from 46% to 100%. Is that supposed to be fast or am I missing something here? I plugged it into a power strip, could that be the reason why the fast charging was not that fast?

Seems odd as mine is 0-80% in about an hour

 

[rmoliv]

Seems odd as mine is 0-80% in about an hour

I did some reading and from what I gathered the rate at which the battery charges slows down as it becomes more charged which means it’ll take longer to charge from 50-100 than from 0-50. But anyway I’ll deplete my iPhone tomorrow and do the test. It should take 30 min to get to 50%.

 

[Ipadlover29]

Looks like you might have a defective charger or cable. My iPhone X charges 0-50 in 30 minutes. Maybe try rebooting your phone.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I did some reading and from what I gathered the rate at which the battery charges slows down as it becomes more charged which means it’ll take longer to charge from 50-100 than from 0-50. But anyway I’ll deplete my iPhone tomorrow and do the test. It should take 30 min to get to 50%.

Correct. North of 80% it slows down to trickle charging to help stress the battery less. Apps like coconutBattery on your Mac will show this. 90%+ it goes really slow for the health of your battery. 5%-80% should be where most of the "rapid" charging happens.

Interested in how your test goes tomorrow! Good luck!

 

[NoBoMac]

As mentioned, as the battery gets closer to 100%, charge speed slows down. Here is an example of one person's test. All the graphs are pretty much like this one.

http://cdn.iphonehacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/iphone8plus-charging-time.png

Personally, I am in the camp of 12w charging in that you get similar results (reports are the phone maxes out at 18w charging, so will not get full 29w of the USB-C charger) at a lower price tag. And no special cables or chargers. The Apple USB-C chargers are convenient if you already own one.

 

[rmoliv]

Ok so I performed the test today with my iPhone’s battery totally depleted and it got charged from 0 to 50% in 29:31,70 which is whitin Apple’s promise of 50% battery in 30min. It then took 1:48:08,69 more to get from 50% to 100% which totaled 2:17:40,39 to get the phone fully charged. The charging slowed down a lot above 95%. Not sure if this was worth the price.

 

[DoubleFlyaway]

Ok so I performed the test today with my iPhone’s battery totally depleted and it got charged from 0 to 50% in 29:31,70 which is whitin Apple’s promise of 50% battery in 30min. It then took 1:48:08,69 more to get from 50% to 100% which totaled 2:17:40,39 to get the phone fully charged. The charging slowed down a lot above 95%. Not sure if this was worth the price.

I love the 29W for my 12.9 IPP, where it makes a HUGE difference (I don’t think they slow it down the way they do for the phones above 50 percent). And on the rare occasion my phone gets below 50 percent, it’s nice. But definitely wouldn’t have been worth it just for my phone.

 

[saltd]

Ok so I performed the test today with my iPhone’s battery totally depleted and it got charged from 0 to 50% in 29:31,70 which is whitin Apple’s promise of 50% battery in 30min. It then took 1:48:08,69 more to get from 50% to 100% which totaled 2:17:40,39 to get the phone fully charged. The charging slowed down a lot above 95%. Not sure if this was worth the price.

I bought the same plug and charger a few months back, and I was initially underwhelmed by the fast charging. It isn’t dramatically better, but I’ve come to appreciate the subtle boost at lower battery percentages. I don’t think I’d drop the $85 again.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Not worth the price. Save tons of money and get a 12w 2.4amp charger instead. This is what I use and it's almost as fast.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Charge...&qid=1523396246&sr=8-3&keywords=anker+charger - $10

 

[yuru_zmi]

I purchased today from Apple the 29W USB-C Power Adapter and the Lighting to USB-C cable to fast charge my iPhone 8 Plus. It took it more than 60min to get from 46% to 100%. Is that supposed to be fast or am I missing something here? I plugged it into a power strip, could that be the reason why the fast charging was not that fast?

Yeah, that time sounds about right actually. The fast charging really works well when you're going from about 0-20%, after that it'll take a bit longer. I mean, it's totally worth it if you already have a MacBook/MacBook Pro and you can just use its charger to charge your iPhone as well. But if you don't have a MacBook or iPad charger, you'll probably get a better deal from a 12W or 18W charger on Amazon.

Check out ZMI's 18-W usb charger: https://www.amazon.com/ZMI-Charging-Adapter-Foldable-Prong-Motorola/dp/B06XRLQHSY

I've been using this one to charge my iPhone 8 pretty much every night, and it works super fast. I basically plug it in before bed, go shower, watch some tv, and it's charged up by the time I'm ready to sleep. Then again, if you take your mind off the iPhone charging for a while, it'll seem faster

 

[Ipadlover29]

Ok so I performed the test today with my iPhone’s battery totally depleted and it got charged from 0 to 50% in 29:31,70 which is whitin Apple’s promise of 50% battery in 30min. It then took 1:48:08,69 more to get from 50% to 100% which totaled 2:17:40,39 to get the phone fully charged. The charging slowed down a lot above 95%. Not sure if this was worth the price.

That still doesn’t sound right. My iPhone X which has a larger battery than your iPhone 8 Plus takes less than 2 hours to fully charge when using the apple 29w charger and apple usb c to lightning cable.

 

[yuru_zmi]

Yeah, that time sounds about right actually. The fast charging really works well when you're going from about 0-20%, after that it'll take a bit longer. I mean, it's totally worth it if you already have a MacBook/MacBook Pro and you can just use its charger to charge your iPhone as well. But if you don't have a MacBook or iPad charger, you'll probably get a better deal from a 12W or 18W charger on Amazon.

Check out ZMI's 18-W usb charger: https://www.amazon.com/ZMI-Charging-Adapter-Foldable-Prong-Motorola/dp/B06XRLQHSY

I've been using this one to charge my iPhone 8 pretty much every night, and it works super fast. I basically plug it in before bed, go shower, watch some tv, and it's charged up by the time I'm ready to sleep. Then again, if you take your mind off the iPhone charging for a while, it'll seem faster

In the previous post on macrumors about iPhone X fast charging times, it took them an hour to get to 78%, and that was with the phone in airplane mode with no apps running. So I mean, if you have a lot of apps running in the background, they could slow down the charging to over 2 hours. I think it's reasonable to expect anywhere in the range of 1:40 to 2:30, depending on your app usage while charging.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/

 

[rmoliv]

I love the 29W for my 12.9 IPP, where it makes a HUGE difference (I don’t think they slow it down the way they do for the phones above 50 percent). And on the rare occasion my phone gets below 50 percent, it’s nice. But definitely wouldn’t have been worth it just for my phone.

I should try it on my iPad Pro 10.5 as well.

That still doesn’t sound right. My iPhone X which has a larger battery than your iPhone 8 Plus takes less than 2 hours to fully charge when using the apple 29w charger and apple usb c to lightning cable.

In the previous post on macrumors about iPhone X fast charging times, it took them an hour to get to 78%, and that was with the phone in airplane mode with no apps running. So I mean, if you have a lot of apps running in the background, they could slow down the charging to over 2 hours. I think it's reasonable to expect anywhere in the range of 1:40 to 2:30, depending on your app usage while charging.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-x-fast-charging-speeds-compared/

I did have many apps running in the background and using GPS. I should repeat the test with airplane mode enabled and compare. Most of the last 15min were to get from 95% to 100%.

 

[DeltaMac]

Compare your charging time while using the original charger that came with your iPhone.

 

[rmoliv]

Repeated test with airplane mode on. It charged faster as expected.

• 27:13,53 to hit 50%
• At the 60min mark it was 81% charged
• It took 2:04:08,39 to get the phone fully charged

I guess temperature influences charging time as well hence why some may take less or more time to charge.