Oppo just blew Apple out of the water with its 240W phone charging that goes from 1% to 100% in 9 minutes

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By Oliver Haslam
published

iPhone charging port
iPhone charging port (Image credit: Joseph Keller/iMore)

What you need to know

  • Oppo has announced technology that could charge a phone to 100% in just nine minutes.
  • The new 240W SUPERVOOC technology will possibly debut in a future flagship OnePlus device.
  • Measures have been put in place to protect the battery, Oppo says.

Apple's iPhones might be able to charge at 20W when you ask them nicely, but Oppo just blew that out of the water completely with a new 240W charger. To put that into perspective, Oppo says that this technology is capable of taking a phone with a 4,500mAh battery from 1% to 100% in just nine minutes.

And yes, it uses USB-C as the connector type.

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One of the main concerns about charging at such high speeds is whether it could affect the battery itself, weakening its ability to hold a charge at all. Oppo thinks it has a fix for that and our friends at TechRadar have the details

Oppo has also minimised potential risks by taking a holistic approach to the safety of the adapter, charging cable and the handset.The 240W SUPERVOOC has a specially customized intelligent control chip that is expected to control the voltage, current, and temperature to deliver a safe charging solution. "A customized battery safety monitoring chip monitors whether the battery of the mobile phone is damaged by external forces when in use," Oppo said.

13 different temperature sensors will be used in phones that support the 240W SUPERVOOC technology to help make sure things don't get too toasty.

Any iPhone that could get anywhere close to these charging speeds would instantly become the best iPhone for road warriors and heavy photo and video users alike. Just don't expect Apple's iPhone 14 to get anywhere close to what Oppo is doing.

All eyes will now be on Oppo to see when it can get this technology into a device that people can actually buy. For now, the less exciting but still insane 150W SUPERVOOC solution will apparently debut in an upcoming OnePlus phone — so eyes peeled for that one!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.