The easiest cure for smartphone battery anxiety isn’t to pair your svelte device with a chunky portable charger, but to fully capitalise on those times when you have access to a power outlet. As recently demonstrated on Weibo, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro+ does exactly that, needing just five minutes to fully recharge. You could spend all night browsing TikTok, plug in your phone in the morning, and it would be fully charged long before you finish your shower.
Although the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro+ Android smartphone is targeted at overseas markets and officially debuted last November, Xiaomi is taking advantage of the Mobile World Congress trade show, currently underway in Barcelona, Spain, to demonstrate the potential of the company’s fast-charging technology.
This isn’t a demonstration using a heavily modified version of the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, either. It’s the same hardware that’s currently shipping, although Xiaomi has apparently swapped the handset’s standard 5,000 mAh battery for a smaller 4,100 mAh option, which certainly contributes to the faster charging speed. However, 4,100 mAh is only slightly smaller than the 4,323 mAh battery Apple ships with the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and much larger than the 3,200 mAh battery in the iPhone 14 Pro, so it’s still a very useable capacity for a smartphone.
But while the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s charging speeds top out at around 26-29W depending on the charger used, needing about 110 minutes to fully recharge the handset’s battery, when paired with a 300W charger, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ charges to 50% capacity in just two minutes, and is fully charged in just under five minutes.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a smartphone charge at incredible speeds. Earlier this month, Realme demonstrated its GT Neo 5 Android smartphone charging its 4,600 mAh battery in just 10 minutes using a 240W charger. Even if battery technology fails to make a quantum leap in terms of capacity, fast charging promises to be a viable solution for feature-packed devices demanding more and more power.
However, what’s rarely addressed in these impressive charging demonstrations is the beefy charger you’ll need to carry with you to achieve these speeds, and how charging a phone in just five minutes will affect the lifespan of its battery. If after a year of five minute power-ups, your smartphone fails to hold a charge, the advantages don’t really seem worth it. That goes extra for models like the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, which don’t offer batteries that can be easily swapped out or replaced without sending them off for repairs.