Tag Archives: Fast Charging

Android, Mobile, News

Honor 80 series announced in China, offers three variants

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Honor has announced the Honor 80 series of smartphones on its official website for China. Three variants of the series, Honor 80, Honor 80 Pro and Honor 80 SE are expected, sporting better cameras, display and faster charging.

Honor 80 ProHonor 80
Honor 80 Pro (left) and Honor 80 (right) renders. Image source: GSMArena

Better triple camera setup, 120Hz displays and MagicOS 7.0

The new series of smartphones was unveiled by Honor during two-day launch event in China, which also showcased MagicOS 7.0. Leading the pack are the vanilla Honor 80 and more premium Honor 80 Pro variants. The Honor 80 Pro comes with a 6.78-inch, 120Hz curved OLED display with 2700×1224 resolution. A highlight of the device is the 160MP main shooter, enhanced with Honor’s Image Engine software. The revamped software features upgraded AI RAW algorithms, scene optimizations, skin texture detection and even AI Vlog mode. The other modules on the back are a 50MP ultrawide and 2M depth module. The front camera is a 50MP selfie camera with secondary 2M depth module. It is powered by a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, though it appears to be a slightly underclocked version as reported by GSMArena.

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Honor 80 and 80 Pro will be available in 4 colors. Image source: GSMArena

The standard Honor 80 variant sports a slightly smaller 6.67-inch OLED display with 2400×1080 resolution with 120Hz refresh rate. It has the same 160MP main shooter and 2M depth module but with a lesser 8MP secondary module. The selfie camera is also of a lesser resolution with 32MP. It is powered by the newly announced Snapdragon 782G SoC and like the Honor 80 Pro, runs on MagicOS 7.0 based on Android 12 out of the box. Both Honor 80 and Honor 80 Pro comes with 4800 mAh batteries and with fast 66W wired charging. They will be available in four color options; Blue Wave, Pink Morning Glow, Jade Green and Bright Black. And for storage options, both devices will be available in three combinations; 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM, 12GB RAM + 256GB ROM and 12GB + 512GB ROM.

A wallet friendly variant, the Honor 80 SE

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Honor 80 SE is the budget entry of Honor’s new smartphone series

Honor has also announced the Honor 80 SE as a budget entry for the series. It sports a 6.67-inch curved 120Hz OLED display with FHD+ resolution of 2400 x 1080. The main camera is a toned-down 64MP main with 5MP ultra-wide module and 2MP macro triple-camera. It will still sport a 32MP selfie camera as seen in the Honor 80. Instead of a Snapdragon SoC, it comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 900 but still runs on MagicOS 7.0 out of the box. It also packs a 4600mAh battery with 66W charging and only comes in two memory configurations; 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM and 12GB RAM + 256GB ROM. The device will also be available in four colors; Moonlight Crystal, Iceland Fantasy, Cherry Pink Coral and Bright Black.

At the moment, there is no official word on release dates and pricing for the Honor 80 series outside of China. Based on the prices on the Honor official website, TechNave has estimated the prices as follows; Honor 80 starting at RM1727, Honor 80 Pro starting at RM2237 and Honor 80 SE starting at RM1535. For more updates on availability and pricing in Malaysia, follow HONOR Official Store and HONOR Malaysia’s Facebook page

Sources: GSMArena, TechNave

Mobile, News

Xiaomi Introduces 200W “HyperCharge” to Charge Your Smartphones in 8 minutes.

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Xiaomi just had their own tech demo on Twitter, and it is amazing. It was more like Xiaomi showing off their latest charging technology. In the video, Xiaomi charged a Mi 11 Pro with 4,0000mAh battery in 8 minutes. They also announced that they also have a new more powerful wireless charging technology that can charge the Mi 11 Pro in 15 minutes with 120W.

To be fair, fast charging technology has received plenty of attention in recent years. Modern flagships have to charge faster every year. The charging speed race technically was kicked off by most of the Chinese manufacturers like OPPO and Xiaomi. OPPO, of course relies on their own VOOC charge technology. Their commercially fastest charging products charge at 125W at the maximum.

In some sense, the charging speed race has been an exciting one to say the least. The wonders of fast charging technology have given us users the freedom of leaving your device on the charger for two hours or less and get going for the rest of the day. It has also freed us from sitting near a wall socket for long hours at a time. With Xiaomi’s demo, you probably can expect to charge a similar smartphone within a minute in a few years’ time.

Here is the thing though, that much displacement of electricity at one go is going to generate a lot of heat. While the speed at which the battery is being charged will cause more wear to the battery itself, the heat produced could also cause extra wear on the battery. More heat will also lead to less stability and in some cases, fire or explosion. In that case, there could be safety and durability problems that manufacturers will soon have to work with before they can push battery charging speeds to 200W and above.

Xiaomi’s tech demo is not an indication of when they will equip devices with 200W charging capabilities. 120W wireless charging mentioned does not also have an implementation date at this time. By the looks of it though, the charger technology is ready for prime time. That also means that we can expect Xiaomi to launch charger products that will charge faster than 120W and fast wireless charging at more than 80W.

Accessories, Mobile, News

Xiaomi Wireless Charging Solutions: Fulfilling Our Wireless Dreams

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Years ago, when Nokia introduced our little world to the magic of wireless charging with the first ever Qi enabled Nokia Lumia 920, we could not fathom what the technology would evolve to. We remembered being excited about wireless charging when they introduced the technology with the Samsung Galaxy Note4. We personally experienced wireless charging first on the Samsung Galaxy Note5.

At the time, wireless charging is not just a luxury. It was a novelty that sort of works. No, it does work, just not all the time. The technology was finnicky at best and wireless chargers do not typically last you for long. Some of them will work for a few months to a year and they become even more finnicky than a broken cable.

The attraction to wireless charging though is massive. Wireless charging opens up a lot of possibilities for users and manufacturers. It opens up your table too, with more manageable cabling. You do not need a flailing cable for your smartphone, at the very least. There is always a designated spot for charging, amazing.

With the dawn of fast charging technology, we see the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus taking the lead in pushing wireless charging technology as far as possible. We see Xiaomi taking the plunge with their 40W wireless charger back in 2020, and later pushing the envelope to 50W wireless charging. OnePlus brought their 55W charging into the fray too.

But we never thought that it was possible to push wireless charging further. Until Xiaomi pulled the veils on their new Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. We are not talking about the device thought, we are talking about the accessories they come with. We are talking about the 80W wireless charger and the charging pad.

80W Wireless Charging Stand

Source: Xiaomi

Xiaomi’s big number that accompanies this new charger is 19 minutes to 100%. The wireless charger is capable is filling up a typical smartphone battery at 4,000mAh from empty to 100%. Of course, the said battery also must be able to be charging at 80W.

The thing is no devices in the current market supports 80W charging just yet. That also means that you are not going to obtain this piece of kit for just current devices. You are future proofing yourself for future generations of device that supports up to 80W wireless charging.

Xiaomi Wireless Charging Pad

Source: Xiaomi

Then there is this new familiar looking piece of kit. We saw it when Apple revealed their wireless charging pad called the AirPower. It was meant to be the base of Apple’s wireless charging devices. But Apple’s vision of a wireless charging pad never came to fruition.

Xiaomi beat them to it with a wireless charging pad that features 19 charging coils that allows you to simply place your wireless charging capable devices on the pad and start charging. There are no orientation requirements at all with the pad, which is its beauty. The charging pad also has enough juice to charge up to 3 devices at the same time at 20W.

Price and Availability

The Xiaomi 80W wireless charging stand will cost CN¥ 499, which is about US$ 76. It comes with a 120W power brick that could easily charge any other smartphones and even low-powered notebooks. If you get the Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro, it is a CN¥ 199 addition. The charging pad will set users in China back CN¥ 599 which is about US$ 91. That is the catch with these charging docks, however. These accessories are only available in China for now. There are no mentions yet on its global availability too.