Breaking the record, 320W super fast charging is really coming!

It must be said, fast charging is truly an eternal topic in the mobile phone industry.

Looking back at the biggest upgrades in Android phones in recent years, aside from screen refresh rates, processor performance, and camera pixel counts, it must be the soaring charging speeds.

From the early 18W to the 65W a few years ago, and now to over 100W high-power fast charging. In just a few short years, we have reduced charging time from an hour to just over ten minutes, which once made Xiao Lei think that we could really say goodbye to long waiting times for charging.

However, after entering 2024, it seems like mobile phone manufacturers have made an agreement and have not introduced any products with ultra-high charging power. Not to mention 200W, even 150W is rare, and many flagship phones selling for six to seven thousand yuan only come standard with around 90W charging power.

This also makes one wonder: "Has ultra-fast charging reached its peak?"Fortunately, I have never thought of it that way.

On August 14th, Realme held a brand new fast charging technology communication meeting at the Shenzhen Excellence Houhai Center, introducing the latest breakthroughs of the brand in mobile phone charging technology.

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As previously teased, the world's first 320W fast charging became the focal point of this communication meeting. Naturally, I rushed to the scene to personally experience the latest achievements of Realme's flash charging technology, and to see how the paper data, which is almost three times that of the common hundred-watt fast charging on the market, could elevate the already convenient charging experience to a new level.

Rooted in technology, a full charge in just 4 minutes

To kick off the 828 Realme Fans' Day, the first to speak was Xu Qi, Vice President of Realme and President of the China region.The wrench briefly highlighted the achievements of the Realme GT6, which has consistently topped the JD.com Snapdragon 8 Gen3 phone bestseller list for seven days, proving its online popularity and living up to its reputation as a hot performance powerhouse in its price segment.

As for the after-sales service, which is of utmost concern to the fans, the wrench also emphasized the future construction plans. By the end of 2024, Realme will expand its offline service outlets to 500, achieving coverage of 80% of the university towns nationwide, and will provide users with worry-free spare phone services.

Moving on to the technical part, as usual, it was led by the person in charge of Realme's technical planning, Fu Qi.

Firstly, he introduced some new technological breakthroughs by Realme, such as AI Game Super Resolution, which is the industry's first AI game super resolution technology that uses an on-device AI model to enhance resolution in real-time, bringing a clearer visual experience with the help of NPU super resolution. As for the effect, I personally think it's much better than simple sharpening.

There's also the industry's first solid-state button that supports both sliding and pressure sensing. It has been tested to allow sliding zoom and pressure shutter in photography, providing a silky touch similar to a camera. The experience of pressing to take photos is indeed good, but the speed of sliding zoom is a bit slow. I hope that in the future, when it is implemented, users will be given some room for adjustment.Additionally, there is the self-developed anti-reflective film by Realme that can significantly reduce screen reflectivity, providing clear visibility in bright external environments; holographic audio technology that can adjust sound positioning, and AI video technology that can convert a single image into a dynamic 25-frame video.

The release of these technologies further demonstrates Realme's strength and determination in innovation.

Of course, what everyone at the scene is most concerned about is undoubtedly the unprecedented 320W SuperDart fast charging technology.

In order to achieve 320W fast charging, Realme, which has been exploring the field of flash charging technology for a long time, has successfully achieved a breakthrough in power after weighing the trade-offs between "high power, high safety, and miniaturization," and has balanced the three through technological innovation.

Firstly, there is a breakthrough in battery technology. Realme successfully folded and inserted four battery cells into the phone's interior by splitting a battery into four cells and using flexible circuit boards and high-density stacking technology, bringing the world's first foldable smartphone battery.Each cell in the folding battery utilizes an advanced stacking process, with a thickness of only 2.9mm, yet it boasts a 10% increase in capacity compared to traditional designs. This enhancement in battery capacity is achieved while ensuring the stability and safety of the battery.

Moving on to charging safety, as a pioneer in flash charging, Realme has introduced for the first time the 'Wireless Power Transfer' technology, which is a high-power-density magnetic coupling DCX voltage reduction technique. This technology ensures the isolation of high voltage from the battery in the event of a severe circuit failure. Coupled with previously commercialized safety measures such as adapters, interfaces, overload protection, and battery fuse protection, it effectively mitigates the safety risks associated with fast charging.

Crucially, in terms of the charger, Realme has launched a dual-port gallium nitride charger with a power output of 320W. The size is consistent with Realme's 240W charger, achieving a power density of 3.3W per cubic centimeter. This compact and portable design is also compatible with mainstream fast-charging protocols on the market, including UFCS (up to 320W), SuperVOOC, PD, PPS, and others.

Here is a live demonstration, which is indeed more compact than Apple's 140W gallium nitride charger.

As for the actual performance of the 320W flash charge with all these technologies stacked up...Just one word—amazing.

The on-site demonstration of the realme True Self test device showed a charge of 28% in 1 minute, and 53% in 2 minutes. The communication meeting's actual measurement indicated that it could be fully charged in just 4 minutes and 58 seconds. As for the subsequent repeated tests, it even achieved a level of 4 minutes and 23 seconds.

A 4420mAh battery, fully charged in four minutes...

It can only be said that the real red horn triple speed has arrived.

However, what everyone is most concerned about, the question of when it can be mass-produced, the presenter was a bit evasive on-site and did not provide a specific product plan.

It can only be said that the implementation of technology is not that easy.Do you want long battery life or fast charging?

In the evolution of fast charging technology for smartphones, Realme has always been at the forefront of the industry.

As early as 2022, the Realme GT Neo3 was the first in the world to introduce 150W ultra-fast charging technology. In 2023, the Realme GT Neo5 became the first globally to mass-produce 240W top-tier ultra-fast charging, with the official claim that it can be fully charged in "just 9 minutes."

Moving forward, although Xiaomi's Redmi brand has also demonstrated 300W charging technology, it remains at the laboratory level for technical display. Manufacturers like Realme that openly showcase their fast charging technology when announcing it are indeed rare.

In other words, today's Realme has a firm grip on the charging power aspect.However, there are reasons why many mainstream manufacturers have stopped at 100-watt fast charging. With the current market technology, as the charging power increases, the energy density of the battery will inevitably be affected. Coupled with the dual constraints of the device's internal space and heat generation, fast charging and battery capacity are like the two ends of a seesaw, an antagonistic relationship: when one end goes up, the other end will go down.

What manufacturers need to do is to find the balance point between fast charging power and battery capacity in terms of user experience.

Products that emphasize fast charging speeds, such as the Realme GT Neo5, offered two versions at launch: "4600mAh + 240W" and "5240mAh + 150W"; a series of fast charging aggressive manufacturers like Redmi and Red Magic have also adopted similar dual-configuration product designs to meet the needs of different users.

As for flagship products, the focus of their promotion is generally on the battery. Since the end of last year, a bunch of new battery technologies led by "Jinsha River" and "Qinghai Lake" have emerged in the market. They maintain 100-watt fast charging while increasing the energy density of the battery, thereby enhancing the phone's endurance without increasing the battery volume.

In other words, 320W fast charging is definitely worth looking forward to, but how Realme will organically adjust the three almost mutually exclusive factors of large battery, high-power fast charging, and slim body, while ensuring the implementation of fast charging technology and fitting in a larger capacity battery, will be a greater highlight of this future mass-produced model.Looking back, the advancements in charging technology such as charge pumps, dual-cell batteries, and gallium nitride are not less significant than those in other parts of the smartphone, and one could even say that a transformation has quietly taken place.

Nowadays, even the time it takes for simple daily tasks like brushing teeth, washing one's face, having a quick meal, or playing a game can be enough to charge a high-capacity battery, greatly alleviating the anxiety of battery life after intensive use of a smartphone, and this is a technological progress that every ordinary person can enjoy.

As it stands, Realme has indeed gone relatively further in the industry, but looking at actual products, other manufacturers may also achieve similar experiences within a few months, and ultimately, the entire industry will return to the same starting line.

At that time, how to continuously, stably, and equitably provide fast charging for smartphones to the public will become a new challenge that constitutes the competitiveness of each brand's product line.

As for when charging time enters within five minutes, can wired charging for smartphones get even faster? And after lifting restrictions, how can higher-end wireless charging bring about improvements that go beyond just speed? We can certainly look forward to more exciting developments.