The OnePlus 8T will indeed come with a dual battery system that will charge at a breakneck speed, offering a day's worth of battery life from 15 minutes of charging.
Yesterday, OnePlus posted a teaser animation for the charging tech the OnePlus 8T will get but didn’t detail how it would work. But now we know, and it's super fast. The OnePlus 8T Warp Charge 65 tech should blow away the iPhone 12, which is rumored to offer just 20W charging.
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Speaking to PCMag, Oneplus CEO Pete Lau confirmed that the OnePlus 8T will use two battery packs that will deliver a combined 4,500 mAh capacity, and will charge to 100 percent in 39 minute thanks to OnePlus’ new Warp Charge 65 tech.
OnePlus 8T charging speed
| 10 minutes | 40% charge |
| 15 minutes | 58% charge |
| 38 minutes | 100% charge |
“It's like filling up a pool with water using two pipes of the same size. When the pipes are the same size, pouring water through two pipes instead of one is undoubtedly faster,” said Lau. “By the same logic, we increased the voltage while maintaining the same current level so that the charger can fill up two batteries at the same time, delivering a more efficient and powerful charging solution."
That pretty much blows away other phones in the market, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, which has a 25W charger to fill its 4,500 mAh battery to 56 percent in 30 minutes. And while the upcoming iPhone 12 is expected to have support for 20W charging, it’s not likely to charge as fast as the OnePlus 8T.
OnePlus 8T: Two batteries are better than one
Splitting batteries is nothing new, as it’s been used in folding phones. But doing so in a non-folding phone will give the OnePlus 8T a big charging upgrade over the OnePlus 8, which used Warp Charge 30T.
In our OnePlus 8 review, we saw the phone regularly fill up from a drained battery to a 68% charge after 30 minutes. But with Warp Charge 65 and the twin battery system, a mere nine more minutes of sucking up electrical juice will see the OnePlus 8T get fully charged.
That’s likely to come in handy as the phone will have a 120Hz refresh-rate display as opposed to the 90Hz on its predecessor. So we’d expect it to get through battery life a little faster, as 120Hz displays can be quite power hungry.
The OnePlus Plus 8T will also likely feature the Snapdragon 865 Plus, which offers a hike in peak performance over the OnePlus 8’s Snapdragon 865. So when running at full speed, we’d expect the OnePlus 8T to consume more power.
Lau also revealed some other Warp Charge 65 tidbits in that it’ll be the first OnePlus charger to use USB-C connection on both sides. It's a huge change, but it does mean the Warp Charge 65 block will work with phones that use the USB-C PD charging standard.
And to prevent heat build up as a result of increasing the charger’s power, Lau noted how the voltage conversion takes place in the charger rather than the phone, which is fairly standard for a OnePlus charger. And Warp Charge 65 also keeps the charging voltage low and thus prevents too much heat from building up from increased electrical resistance.
The trade-off: No wireless charging
However, all this charging tech comes at a price: there will be no wireless charging in the OnePlus 8T.
One of the things that held OnePlus phones back from being true flagship handsets was the lack of wireless charging. OnePlus finally bought in wireless charging with the OnePlus 8 Pro, but that looks to have stopped. Lau noted there was no space for a wireless charging coil in the chassis of the OnePlus 8T, presumably because of its dual battery design.
"Implementing the coil component needed for wireless charging would add to the phone’s thickness, which we feel would impact the overall design and user experience," Lau explained.
Some may bemoan that omission, while others may shrug if they don’t use wireless chargers a lot. We’ll reserve judgment until we get our hands on the OnePlus 8T. And we won’t have too long to wait, as the phone is set for a full reveal on October 14.
