By 
Battery life is always an important metric when looking to upgrade to a new Android device. Part of the equation that’s often times overlooked is how quickly the phone’s actually actually charge so you can be up and on your way.
We’ve seen a lot of advancements in fast charging technology over the past few years. Motorola has their own 30W Turbo Charging technology, Google’s using the USB compliant Type C Power Delivery (3A) on their devices, OnePlus has Dash Charging, while Qualcomm has been touting Quick Charge 4.0 as the next big evolution of fast charging.
The Galaxy Note 8 on the other hand? Well, like the Galaxy S8 and S8+, it’s still using the same old Adaptive Fast Charging tech that debuted all the way back on the Galaxy S6. It’s the equivalent of — and compatible with — Quick Charge 2.0, just not quite as good. While it’s definitely faster than what you would get with the iPhone 7, it still doesn’t hold a candle to competing technologies.
For instance, unlike Quick Charge 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0, Adaptive Fast Charging doesn’t work while you’re actually using the device. That’s to say if the screen is on, a notification will tell you that your phone is “Fast Charging” but what it doesn’t tell you is that fast charging doesn’t kick in until the screen goes off. It’s a pretty big limitation, one you wont find on any other device from a competing manufacturer and can dramatically increase charging times while using the phone.
Battery life is often times the biggest deciding factor when people are trying to figure out if they should upgrade to a new device or not. For Samsung to have not put any effort into speeding up charging times is absolutely perplexing. In any case, here’s how quickly the Note 8 charged using the included Adaptive Fast charger.
Galaxy Note 8 Charging Times
- 10 min – 13%
- 20 min – 26%
- 30 min – 38%
- 40 min – 50%
- 50 min – 61%
- 60 min – 70%
- 70 min – 78%
- 80 min – 88%
- 90 min – 96%
- 100 min – 99%
- 107 min – 100%
Total: 1hr 47min (6,420 seconds)
So there you have it. Adaptive Fast Charging on the Galaxy Note 8 is far from perfect, but it’ll get the job done. Because of the nature of fast charging, you may want to consider unplugging at the 80-90% mark as the phone starts trickle charging after that (to help maintain good battery health).
One high note is that the Galaxy Note 8 (like the S8 and S8+ before it) still includes wireless and wireless fast charging. The phone works with both WPC and PMA, takes the guesswork out of compatibility. With news that Apple is now adding wireless for the iPhone 8/X, we could see a resurgence of the technology as it goes mainstream inside of restaurants, coffee shops, automobiles, and the like. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to test fast charging speeds, but maybe I can follow up in a separate post…
Any Galaxy Note 8 owners out there? How have charging speeds been for you? Are you completely satisfied or do you think it’s time Samsung experiment with something a little quicker?
Comments