Xiaomi breakthrough charges phone to 100% in 8 minutes — here’s how

Many of us charge our phones up overnight, but no doubt we'd all prefer the ability to fill our phones up in less than ten minutes whenever we needed to do so. That's something that Chinese phone maker Xiaomi's been working on.

If the 67W charging speed of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra isn't enough for you, the company claimed it has broken the world record for phone charging speeds. In a Twitter video published on the company's official profile, Xiaomi's prototype charged fully in about 7 minutes and 6 seconds with a 200W wired connection. Over a 120W wireless connection, the phone took around 15 minutes to charge to 100%.

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These impressive numbers were achieved via a couple of unique methods, as detailed by Weibo user Fei Wei (via Engadget Chinese) who was briefed on the experiments. 

The phone itself, a modified Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro, used a 4,000 mAh graphene battery,  a fairly low capacity cell compared to most modern phones. However graphene is thought to be the next frontier in mobile device battery development, thanks to its faster safe charging speeds and lighter weight compared to lithium-ion batteries currently used.

Xiaomi's special chargers use emerging technology too. The wired charger featured gallium nitride components instead of the typical silicon ones, allowing it to produce 200W of power safely and in a compact form factor. Meanwhile, the wireless charger used an unspecified dual-coil design, different from the usual single-coil wireless chargers we have right now.

Xiaomi's impressive achievement puts current fast charging standards to shame. It almost doubles the performance of current leaders in rapid charging, such as the 65W wired and 50W wireless charging abilities with the OnePlus 9 Pro, let alone other common phone standards. 

The iPhone 12 can charge at a maximum of 20W wired and 18W wireless (only via a MagSafe charger), while the Samsung Galaxy S21 can only manage 25W wired and 15W wireless. 

This is just an experiment for now though. Xiaomi doesn't mention when these impressive chargers will work with its retail phones, though we might predict it'll be a year or two if we're lucky. But remember that these record-breaking speeds were achieved with currently available technology, which means such charging speeds will be within reach for average users at some point in the near future.

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