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Regular iPhone 17's USB-C Charging Speeds Tested With Apple Chargers

DEMinSoCAL said:
And there are plenty of chargers for your Air already, right? What would the 40W/60W give you that you don't already have?
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The advantage is that the new 40-60W charger is tiny.

I’d love to have a 40-60W charger in the same form factor as my Apple UK 20W charger! (Sadly there is no UK version, yet)
 
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Honestly they only need to test with a 100W USB-PD charger (practical max for most USB-PD devices), record the maximum wattage drawn and just make conclusions about the maximum charger to get.

Testing with that many chargers is redundant.
 
I'm still using the MagSafe Duo Charger pairs with the 35W Dual USB-C Port Power Adapter.
 
Very good to see faster charging speeds on the base model. Might get the new 40w charger from Apple if it is released in my country.
 
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WarmWinterHat said:
I use the 5w cube on 16 Pro, because why not? I charge at night and don't care how long it takes.
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Yeah, I agree. My running scheme has been pretty much

Use the slowest possible charger at all times unless I need to charge quickly, in which case I will use the 20w Power Adapter with which I charge my newer iPads.

20W may not be the fastest, but coincidentally, I had to use the 20W with my 16 Plus for a little while because that’s all I had available once and it was ridiculously fast for me. In about three weeks, not once did I say “I need something that’s faster than this”.

This video:



Shows charging speeds with different chargers. The 16 Plus has a similar battery size when compared to the 16 Pro Max. One hour to 77% with the 20w, 2 hours to full from 0%.

I practically never charge from 0%, as I like to start the day with 100% so I’ll charge it from whatever it ends with, sometimes overnight with optimised charging if I don’t have enough time in the morning.


I’ve never tested it with the 5w, but it charged the 15 Pro Max from 0% after 5h 44 min. Even from 0%, that’s plenty fast for an overnight charge. And I typically charge from 65-80%, so there’s pretty much always enough time.

Many people really care about iPhones paling in charging speeds vs the ultra-fast Android chargers, but for me battery life on my 16 Plus is so good on iOS 18 that I don’t need to charge during the day at all. Maybe if somebody does drain the battery throughout the day then ultra-fast chargers make sense. But not for us. In fact, my 5w charger is too fast - optimised doesn’t work properly and always finishes charge too early. I wish it learned my unplug time (which is rather consistent), and finished a few hours after it does.
 
DEMinSoCAL said:
The article says "charging speed", yet we are just told about how much power the iPhone will draw from the charger.

Where are the speeds? Does the new Apple charger charge to 50% in 20 minutes even though it pushes only 23W?

How long to charge to 50% with all these other chargers for comparison? For me, some wattage doesn't tell me how long it will take to charge.
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Wattage literally is charging speed, it's the rate at which energy is delivered to the device. Asking "Where are the speeds?" when they give you wattage is like asking "how fast is this car going?" after being told the speed in mph. Pls don't complain about technical specs you clearly don't grasp.
 
marcquaz said:
Wattage literally is charging speed, it's the rate at which energy is delivered to the device. Asking "Where are the speeds?" when they give you wattage is like asking "how fast is this car going?" after being told the speed in mph. Pls don't complain about technical specs you clearly don't grasp.
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Sorry -- disagree. Wattage is like being told how many times your tires are rotating a minute. Sure, with some big math involving the radius of your tires, you could figure out your speed and then you could probably figure out how long it would take to go 50% the distance of your trip. Telling anyone the watts being drawn without any other information says absolutely nothing about how long it will take to charge your phone to 50%.

My toaster draws 1300W. What's the "speed" of your toaster, because, you know...we all rate our toasters by speed (which to me is how FAST it toasts your bread in TIME measurements).
 
DEMinSoCAL said:
Sorry -- disagree. Wattage is like being told how many times your tires are rotating a minute. Sure, with some big math involving the radius of your tires, you could figure out your speed and then you could probably figure out how long it would take to go 50% the distance of your trip. Telling anyone the watts being drawn without any other information says absolutely nothing about how long it will take to charge your phone to 50%.

My toaster draws 1300W. What's the "speed" of your toaster, because, you know...we all rate our toasters by speed (which to me is how FAST it toasts your bread in TIME measurements).
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You are given the battery capacity (distance), and the charging SPEED (speed), and you still don't know how to calculate how long it takes to reach 50% battery (time)? Don't try to make it sound complicated by comparing it to tire rotations. Again, "Where are the speeds?" is a joke of an argument, since I already pointed out that wattage is speed, and it's easy to compute charging time based on it.

I'll do you a favor and show you the calculation: The iPhone 17 has a 14.35 Wh battery capacity, so charging from 0–50% will take about: (14.351Wh x 50%) / 27W ~ 16 minutes.
So Apple's claim that it charges to 50% in about 20 minutes is valid. Beyond that, Apple might slow it down to preserve battery health, but thats a another story.
 
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Martin81 said:
Exactly. But does Apple publish that info?
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Yes, Apple lists device max charging speeds, but these snapshots of charger wattage are meaningless for real-world use. They don’t show how long a full charge takes. Only real-world smartphone discharge and charge duration tests (e.g., 10% to 100%) provide valuable insights. MagSafe tops Apple’s charger list, but its heat generation likely slows it down, not making it the fastest. Wattage can drop mid-charge, and will charge on a non-constant curve, so momentary readings are unreliable. Instead, compare the top 5-7 best-selling iPhone chargers with full charge tests to show how they perform with the phone. Snapshots offer no practical value.
 
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I bought some 35w dual port usb-c from Amazon basics and sprinkled them solarium’s the house. Not that it’s needed but we’ve gotten spoiled with the faster charging these provides to our phones. The 12 and 5 watt charger have been relegated to emergency use.
 
DEMinSoCAL said:
The article says "charging speed", yet we are just told about how much power the iPhone will draw from the charger.

Where are the speeds? Does the new Apple charger charge to 50% in 20 minutes even though it pushes only 23W?
Click to expand...

In the world of the physics of battery management, charge speed is always going to be highly variable based on both ambient and internal heat, CPU processes, radio environment demands, and many other variables associated with the physical world. So it doesn't make sense to offer up a number when in practice that number will be wrong the most of the time.

Likewise, when you buy a identical car batteries for identical cars, one might last 37 months while the other might last 7 years. The details result in wildly differing realities, and one cannot simply get a reliably repeatable or useful number through such a simplistic test using so few devices.

In other words, click-bait.
 
marcquaz said:
You are given the battery capacity (distance), and the charging SPEED (speed), and you still don't know how to calculate how long it takes to reach 50% battery (time)? Don't try to make it sound complicated by comparing it to tire rotations. Again, "Where are the speeds?" is a joke of an argument, since I already pointed out that wattage is speed, and it's easy to compute charging time based on it.

I'll do you a favor and show you the calculation: The iPhone 17 has a 14.35 Wh battery capacity, so charging from 0–50% will take about: (14.351Wh x 50%) / 27W ~ 16 minutes.
So Apple's claim that it charges to 50% in about 20 minutes is valid. Beyond that, Apple might slow it down to preserve battery health, but thats a another story.
Click to expand...
Sorry, your last sentence specifically admitting that the calculation might not give the actual time doesn’t help your argument, as it is very much part of this story.
 
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