With the Galaxy S10 out of the way, and the S10 5G all but in customers’ hands at this point, the world’s attention has shifted to the phablet Samsung will launch later in 2019. However, a new cryptic tweet about the Galaxy Note 10 from a well-regarded Samsung leaker has cast doubt that the company will fix one of its devices’ most glaring oversights.
Twitter user Ice Universe, who was responsible for a great many of the rumors, renders and images that emerged leading up to the launch of the Galaxy S10 is now walking back a claim made earlier that the Note 10 will receive 25-watt fast charging.
“I take it back, but I can’t say more,” Ice Universe says in relation to the rumor they started. “I can only say that your expectations are worthwhile.”
While it’s unclear what they mean by “expectations” (are we still talking about battery charging speed or the device overall?), the fact remains that this puts a disappointing damper on a feature the Note 10 really, really needs — especially if it’s going to have a gigantic 4,500-mAh battery, as Ice Universe suggested a few days earlier.
Samsung improved the speed of wireless charging with the S10 series, moving up to 12 watts, while the company neglected to touch its 15W wired fast charging technology. (The lone exception in the family is the S10 5G, which strangely will get the newer 25W wired spec to go with its own 4,500-mAh power pack.)
Samsung’s lack of investment in charging speed with the initial three S10 variants was quite a disappointment. It was also an unexpected one, considering Ice Universe said several months before the handsets’ launch that the company would make 15W charging “history” with the new models.
Adding insult to injury, Samsung's Android competition have absolutely trounced it with respect to this subject. Huawei’s latest smartphones come with a 40W brick, pushing an unprecedented amount of juice in a very short amount of time. The Mate 20 Pro and recently-launched P30 Pro can hit an astonishing 70 percent capacity in just 30 minutes.
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OnePlus is another manufacturer that has been responsible for many innovations in charging technology over the past several years. The McLaren special edition of the OnePlus 6T introduced the company’s 30W Warp Charge system, which took the device from zero to 66% in a half hour, and several rumors point to that same technology will be implemented again in the rumored OnePlus 7 Pro.
In other words, Samsung has had an awful lot of chances to catch up to its rivals here. If the Note 10’s battery will really be as massive as some have suggested, it’s going to need a totally revamped system so it won't need to be plugged in for hours on end just to snag a full charge. And based on what we’re now hearing, that’s not quite as safe a bet as we all hoped.
