Oppo has long been a leader in engineering fast-charging solutions — it developed the tech behind the Dash Charge system used in OnePlus phones, for example, and has achieved even faster results in many of its own devices. Today, the company is taking a further step forward with the announcement of a 125W system that it claims is the most advanced in the industry.
The headline figures of the system are that it can charge a 4,000mAh phone battery in 20 minutes and up to 41 percent in 5 minutes. If accurate, this would beat Oppo’s own record for fast-charging a battery of that size by around 10 minutes.
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This isn’t simply a matter of building a big power adapter and plugging it into a regular phone — the charger, cable, and battery itself need to be designed together for safety and efficiency. Oppo says the phone, which isn’t yet a commercial product, uses double-6C cells with “breakthrough battery ratio,” while the charger benefits from improved power density properties so as not to grow too large. It uses USB-C at both ends of the cable, unlike Oppo’s previous USB-A VOOC chargers.
Oppo hasn’t announced a phone that will ship with this technology yet, but it often announces features like this before commercial products. The current fastest-charging phone in the world is the Oppo Reno Ace, which has a 4,000mAh battery that in my testing I could fully charge in 31 minutes with its 65W charger. Vivo, which shares ownership and technology with Oppo, announced 120W tech last year that can supposedly charge a 4,000mAh battery in 13 minutes, but it’s yet to ship on any phone.
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Oppo has been extremely slow to adopt wireless charging, only announcing its first phone to use the technology earlier this year, but the company is now claiming to have the fastest wireless system too. Its new 65W AirVOOC tech can wirelessly charge a 4,000mAh battery in 30 minutes, Oppo claims, which would even make it faster than any currently available wired solution.
Oppo has designed a 65W AirVOOC charger, but there’s no word on when it’ll be available or when phones will support it. The lack of wireless charging was really my only major complaint with this year’s otherwise-excellent Find X2 Pro flagship, so hopefully Oppo will take the feature seriously.
Finally, Oppo is rounding out its day of charging tech news by announcing a couple of compact adapters that use GaN technology to reduce their size. There’s a 50W mini SuperVOOC charger that Oppo compares to the size of a business card holder, along with a 110W mini flash charger that’s about the size of a regular 18W adapter.
