Just a few days ago Oppo unveiled the Find X5 flagship duo, which supports the new 80W SuperVOOC. Today at its MWC presentation the company announced what comes next – an upgraded system that will nearly double the power.
In a laboratory test, the upcoming 150W
SuperVOOC system charged a prototype phone with a 4,500 mAh battery from 1% to
50% in just 5 minutes and got all the way to 100% in a total of 15 minutes (this
was with the device powered on, but inactive and in airplane mode). For
comparison, the older 65W charger needs around 40 minutes to get to 100%.
The new system introduces a 150W SuperVOOC
charger. Thanks to its GaN technology, the charger measures 58 x 57 x 30 mm and
weighs 172g. This isn’t much larger than Oppo’s old 65W SuperVOOC adapter. This
also means that the adapter has a power density of 1.51W/cm³, much higher than
a typical charger. While VOOC tech is
proprietary (with 1,786 patents granted and 1,604 still pending), the new
charger supports the standard USB Power Delivery and PPS protocols that are
used by phones, laptops and other gadgets.
Anyway, the charger outputs 7.5A at 20V.
Inside the phone are two battery cells, each with its own charge pump, which
converts the incoming electricity to 5V/15A and feeds that into the battery. Oppo
addressed concerns about battery life in two ways. The first is the Battery
Health Engine, which employs a custom chip to manage the battery. In lab
testing a battery retained 80% of its capacity after 1,600 complete charge
cycles (double the industry average of 800 cycles).
This is in part thanks to the Smart
Battery Health algorithm, which constantly monitors the negative electrode to
minimize the occurrence of dead lithium – lithium ions that become trapped and
are unable to carry charge (losing lithium that way is what reduces the
battery’s capacity). The Oppo Find X5 series already features the Battery
Health Engine.
The Battery Healing technology tackles
another issue. The battery design that Oppo uses includes a Solid Electrolyte
Interface (SEI), a durable film on the battery’s electrodes that protects them
from degradation. Battery Healing here refers to a special formula for the
electrolyte that continuously repairs the SEI layer while the battery is
charging and discharging. This keeps the electrodes in good condition, which
improves the battery’s performance and extends its lifespan. The first phone to
make use of the 150W charging system will actually be a OnePlus device, coming
in the April-June quarter. By the way, Realme also announced 150W charging tech
earlier today.
The company revealed that it is working on
improving SuperVOOC to support 200W and above charge speeds. It already has a
working prototype of a 240W system - the 4,500 mAh inside charges to 100% in
just 9 minutes. Let us repeat that a full battery charge takes under 10
minutes. The time to 50% is also
mind-boggling, just 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This is achieved by extending the
SuperVOOC system to send 24V/10A towards the phone and using three charge pumps
to convert that to 10V/24A. This is just a demo, though, it will be a while
before 240W charging appears on mass market phones (but 150W will be a reality
quite soon).
