Xiaomi recently revealed its new ‘HyperCharge’ charging tech, which does exactly what it says on the tin: it charges your phone in record time. However, and we did ruminate on this last week, your phone’s battery pays a price for all that wattage: its capacity.
Watt’s the deal with HyperCharge, Xiaomi?
In case you missed it, Xiaomi’s HyperCharge comes in two flavours: 200W on cable and 120W wireless. That’s a lot of watts. But batteries aren’t invincible. Heck, anyone who’s used a smartphone for longer than two years can tell when the battery begins to feel a little… smaller.
Well, that ‘a little’ could very well become ‘a lot’ if you spend those two years charging up your phone with HyperCharge. Xiaomi posted a Q-and-A over on Weibo today where one question asked exactly what impact HyperCharge would have on a phone battery. The answer… isn’t great.
800 charging and discharging cycles (that’s running it flat and filling it up again) on the 200W charge will kick your battery down to only 80% capacity. I.e. your phone’s usual 80% will be its new 100%.
According to Android Authority, 800 cycles is around two years of use.
Now, obviously that wouldn’t brick your phone entirely, but it’s certainly a concern. Like we said last week, we reckon that, for now, fast-charge methods like HyperCharge should be reserved for a pinch, like forgetting to plug your phone in overnight. Phone makers should probably iron out some more of the kinks before making blistering charge speeds a standard feature for their flagships and chargers.