Charging matters - the Samsung Galaxy S6

What does it take to capture attention at a packed trade show amidst all the hustle and bustle? In my case it was a single slide that promised a charge time of no less than ten minutes for a new smartphone due to be released. I stopped dead in my tracks whilst passing the Samsung booth at the 2015 Mobile World Congress - the specs of Samsung’s new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, were being unveiled.

Battery life and charge time

Charging is a nuisance and battery life still ranks at the top of most people’s preferences when selecting a new device. The paradigm from my perspective had always been “How much time do you get from a single charge?” But passing Samsung’s booth it occurred to me that by dramatically reducing the time needed for a full charge is another way to skin the cat. The nuisance factor of charging drops and influences the acceptance of shorter “battery life”. Device selection by scrutinizing the energy metric then becomes a trade off between the time needed to fully power the phone and the ensuing endurance of its charge.

At the Mobile World Congress: Samsung compares the charge
time needed for their new flagship Galaxy S6 versus the iPhone 6

At the MWC, Samsung claimed that their Galaxy S6 (due for release on 10 April 2015) will provide four hours of operation on a 10-minute charge. Oops. I initially thought 10 minutes would mean a full charge. Besides, does being operational mean making calls, browsing the web or just being idle in standby? This is where things gets confusing.

4 versus 3 hours?

Back home I quickly checked what my iPhone 6 plus gets me on a ten-minute charge from an empty battery. It’s battery status indicated a 5 % charge. It lasted for around 3 hours during which I spent roughly one hour surfing the Internet using a 802.11 ac WiFi connection. Sure, that’s comparing apples with oranges. Battery endurance should accurately measure the split of time spent on making calls, browsing the web or just being idle in standby as well as taking the wireless connection into account. But 4 versus 3 hours? Is that a quantum leap as Samsung suggests, or just another case of marketing interpreting basic physics in new ways?

Copying: the sincerest form of flattery

In its comparative marathon, Samsung claimed its new flagship phone charges in half the time of an iPhone 6. The jury is out on that one and certainly phone review websites will seize the opportunity as soon as the device is available. Keep watching this space. It’s clear that Samsung has done much with its new device to match Apple’s latest smartphone models: use of superior materials lead to a higher appreciation of quality; the battery is now built into the device and can no longer be removed; the phone no longer accepts memory cards. Some of these new features are bound to annoy Samsung aficionados who have cherished this differentiation from the iconic smartphone inventor. On the other hand, new features such as wireless charging with its support of both WMC and PMA standards means Samsung is one lap ahead of the field.

Keep your eyes peeled

Fast charging is a prized feature for power-hungry phones. I’m curious to find out what it takes in battery technology, semiconductor devices and the chargers as such to offer incremental improvements for decreasing the time it takes to “fill up a phone” as we move forward.