As reported on The Verge.
By Dante D’Orazio
Qualcomm left out a few details when it announced its next-generation Snapdragon 800 mobile processor last month at CES. Every smartphone and tablet that utilizes the processor (none of which are expected until next year) will be enabled with what the company is calling Quick Charge 2.0, which is said to charge devices 75 percent faster than those without the technology. In the real world (if you count Qualcomm’s laboratory as the real world), it’s reported that some tablets that normally take over seven hours to charge did so in under three.
The technology builds off of Quick Charge 1.0, which is said to offer 40 percent faster charging than older phones, and Qualcomm announced just last week that it had been built into over 70 Snapdragon-powered devices like the Galaxy S III, Nexus 4, and Lumia 920. Quick Charge 2.0-enabled chargers can safely harness up to 60 watts of power, suggesting we may see the technology used on low-power laptops like Chromebooks in the future. The technology will also be offered to other companies not using Snapdragon 800 processors, but no partners have been announced yet. Additionally, Qualcomm has announced that devices using Snapdragon 800 processors will have a low-power voice activation feature that will allow users to wake up their phone with their voice