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Does Fast Charging ACTUALLY Ruin Your Battery? - YouTube
Channel: Marques Brownlee
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okay so it seems like every few months a
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new company someone comes out with the
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new
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fastest ever charging smartphone like
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years ago the flagship iphone was
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charging at five watts and that was
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fairly standard it would take about two
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and a half hours to charge the phone
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from zero to a hundred then when the
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pixel one came out that was super fast
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charging at 18 watts then soon the
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iphone bumped up to 20. then you might
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remember one plus beat out everybody for
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a couple years with 30 watts but soon we
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had 45
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65
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80. now today right now this xiaomi 12
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pro ships with this 120
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watt charger this you could you can buy
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this right now today it charges the
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whole phone from zero to 100 in 17
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minutes and then just a few weeks ago
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oppo demoed this it's not on a real
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smartphone yet but it would charge a
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theoretical
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240 watts which would go from zero to a
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hundred
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in nine minutes that's pretty ridiculous
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and then as you may have noticed like i
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have pretty much any time one of these
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demos gets posted somewhere universally
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the comments across the board are like i
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don't want that on my phone that
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definitely is going to overheat
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good luck plugging that in for more than
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five minutes before it explodes people
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across the board are universally
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convinced that there is no way that this
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can be good for your smartphone's
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battery which got me thinking
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if this is true
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then why would these companies keep
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doing this
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is fast charging actually ruining your
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battery so i dove into it i just go
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straight in plenty of google searches
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plenty of articles read plenty of people
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talk to and plenty of hot takes out
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there but this is what i found so
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batteries have improved in their
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chemistry over time but right now all
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phones use lithium ion or lithium
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polymer batteries and the way they work
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is they have a positive side and a
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negative side and the lithium ions flow
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from the negative to the positive side
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through a liquid electrolyte solution
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and as they flow energy is released into
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the circuit that's what's keeping the
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phone powered by the battery when that
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flow is over though the battery has
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reached zero percent and is dead so
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charging the battery back up is moving
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those ions back through from the
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positive to the negative side through
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that electrolyte solution so the first
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thing to know about charging a battery
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is batteries are kind of like a sponge
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like they they absorb the most energy
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when they have the least in them and
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then as they get closer and closer to
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full they can't absorb quite as
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efficiently and then there is some
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excess lost with a sponge it's just
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extra water passing through with a
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battery that's just excess heat and so
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what that looks like is charging
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actually happens on a curve those
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numbers that you keep seeing with the
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100 watts and 150 watt fast charging
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that's not the constant rate of charging
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that's just the peak the maximum that
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they're capable of but that's typically
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only briefly the actual rate so a 65
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watt fast charger for example will
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typically only hit 65 watts for the
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first few minutes pretty early on in the
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charge from low battery and then taper
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off and basically only trickle charge at
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a lower wattage after around 80 and you
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can actually view that if you get one of
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these incredibly nerdy cables with the
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display on it that lets you see exactly
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how much power your phone is accepting
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while you're charging i'll link one of
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them below the like button but then the
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second thing to know is batteries do
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degrade over time the iphone as you've
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probably seen lets you literally
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visualize it shows you the percentage so
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if you go to settings and battery and
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battery health you can see your iphone's
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degradation rating as a number from 1 to
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100 so this 13 pro i've been using is
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still good for 97 of the capacity it had
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when i got it five months ago so why
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does it go down is the real question
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we're trying to answer and turns out
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there are several things that degrade
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batteries i mean these are they're picky
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little things they're very energy dense
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little storage units they don't like
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being at 100 exactly they don't like
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being at zero percent and they do
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naturally degrade over time as they go
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through charge cycles and the ions pass
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through that electrolyte solution over
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and over again slowly breaking it down
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this is totally natural and can't really
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be avoided as you charge the phone more
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and more but the number one factor that
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damages batteries that degrades them
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faster than normal but ruins your
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battery is heat so the ions are moving
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through that electrolyte a lot but you
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can think of the electrolyte basically
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like salts so they can be pretty
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sensitive to changes in heat they can
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actually crystallize and clog up the
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anodes and cathodes which stops them
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from being able to store the lithium
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ions and like i mentioned earlier when
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the battery isn't in the optimal state
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of charge it's less efficient and that
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extra runoff energy manifests as heat
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the heat is no good so clearly the goal
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here is to minimize any excess heat
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around that battery which would damage
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it faster than normal now the thing is
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generally the more wattage the more
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power you're pumping into this battery
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the more heat it's going to generate so
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it sounds like this extra fast charging
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is clearly bad for your phone it's more
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heat generated and it's bad degradation
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but that's not something these companies
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aren't thinking about so over the years
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a bunch of these different smartphone
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companies have basically been working on
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trying to figure out how to charge these
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phones as fast as possible without
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generating any extra heat like if you
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look at just xiaomi's page for their
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fast charging alone there's tons of
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charts and graphs and claims about what
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they're doing to get around this so one
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new advancement came from one plus when
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they dropped that warp charge 30t
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charger it was kind of interesting and a
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little confusing maybe that we had warp
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charge 30 and warp charge 30t and both
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were 30 watts but 30t was faster but
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this is because with 30t the power
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management got handled in the brick
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instead of in the phone so there was
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more heat produced by the brick in the
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wall instead of on the phone near the
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battery so oneplus could put the same
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amount of power into the phone but for a
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longer period of time without heating it
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up as much and so the charging curve
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could be improved like this so that's a
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nice step the downside there is we're
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now we're getting larger power bricks
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but that's a bit of a trade-off people
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are willing to make i guess but then
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another way we've seen a bunch of
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companies jump on especially lately is
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with something called parallel charging
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so basically instead of putting a ton of
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power into a single battery they
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actually split up the battery into two
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cells next to each other and then add
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power management hardware to split the
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incoming power this is a simple but
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brilliant way to get faster charging
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times without a ton of heat imagine
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instead of trying to pump 50 watts into
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a single 5000 milliamp hour battery just
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doing 25 watts into two batteries of
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half the size that's going to generate
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way less heat it's only 25 watts but
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combined when you draw the curves you
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can achieve the equivalent of 50 watt
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charging and you get to put 50 watts on
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the box but it's with way less heat but
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again there's a downside to this method
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too which is a slightly smaller overall
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battery capacity because if you take the
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same internal volume of two batteries
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instead of one that means there's more
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space taken up by the boundary between
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the batteries and the housing and that
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charging management hardware i mentioned
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so you'll often end up with slightly
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smaller overall batteries if they're
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split like this and then of course
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something we've seen in just about every
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new phone coming out which doesn't
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really have a downside is just adding
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more
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cooling hardware onto the phone itself
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sometimes that's heat shields and vapor
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chambers sometimes it's a whole fan but
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specifically we're trying to get the
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parts inside from getting too hot it
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feels like every smartphone announcement
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for the past two to three years has some
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sort of section about cooling especially
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gaming phones you're of course cooling
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the system on a chip too
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but the better the cooling system
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overall the more power you can put into
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the phone without it getting too hot so
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the real question is
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is it working
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like is it is it that simple you can
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just as long as you keep the phone cool
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enough you can put as much power into it
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as you want well there are the downsides
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i mentioned earlier with the larger
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brick and maybe the phone's got to be
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thicker with more cooling and has a
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smaller capacity battery
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but the question we're trying to ask is
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what counts as ruining your battery
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that's a simple one and it turns out
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there's actually an industry standard
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for this so from the research i've done
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and the people at these companies i've
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talked to that generally accepted target
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goal is 80
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battery health after 800 charges
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so let's say you charge your phone
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roughly once a day that'll pan out to
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about two years so 80 charge after two
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years so this iphone now that i'm at 97
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after about five months is on track to
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be at roughly 85
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after two years which that's pretty good
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that's above the industry standard
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officially not being ruined now for all
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these super fast chargers that are new
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well it's tough because they're new so
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they've just come out and we don't have
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long term data and it sucks that the
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only information i can use is just
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coming straight from those companies so
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i'm basically taking their word for it
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that yeah the fast charging doesn't ruin
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the phone over time but it's the best
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information we have
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and it is actually surprisingly
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impressive so from their test results
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xiaomi on their site say that their 120
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watt charging tech is rated to maintain
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80 battery health after 800 charge
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cycles
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apple on their site they don't have the
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fastest charging but they say 80
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after just 500 charges but like i said
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it seems like they're outperforming
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their own claims hey under promise over
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deliver and then oppo and oneplus who've
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announced they'll have a 150 watt
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charging phone this year
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say that they've specifically stated
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it'll go 80 battery health after 1
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600 cycles so that will outperform the
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industry standard which i guess means
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they have room to keep going up now
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don't get me wrong the trade-offs are
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very real not everybody wants a thicker
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phone or a larger power brick or a
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slightly smaller capacity battery but
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from where i'm sitting and from the test
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results that we can go by
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basically fast charging does not have to
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ruin your battery life and really the
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best part of that is just convenience on
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top of the fact that these companies are
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all actively still working on making
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this stuff better you might have heard
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about gallium nitride chargers there's a
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couple actually out there already in the
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market that allows the brick to actually
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be much smaller than the typical silicon
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charges we're all using now so you can
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do a 65 watt gallium nitride charger
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half the size and still put the same
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power into the phone but really what it
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comes down to these days is it's called
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a smartphone for a reason batteries
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these days
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are smart like modern phones all have
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tons of hardware and sensors inside the
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phone to help measure temperature and
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regulate charging so it's doing all
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kinds of stuff automatically and then
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the phones all will add a bunch of
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software features on top to help you
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actively maintain the battery to the nth
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degree plus you know phones like the rog
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phone 5 have pass-through charging so
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when you're plugged in and gaming which
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is typically not a good idea on a
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regular phone it can just power the
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system and it doesn't add charge to the
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battery at all so you're not putting
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extra stress and heat on the battery and
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it can maintain battery health for a lot
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longer the latest iphones and pixels too
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right now have a feature where if you
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plug in at night around the same time
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every night after a few days it learns
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when you wake up so instead of charging
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right to 100 when you plug it in it
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charges up to 80 then waits all the way
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until you're about to wake up maybe an
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hour before your alarm and then charges
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the rest of the way up to 100 so you
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wake up with a full battery but better
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health and pretty much any other phone
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with this super fast charging coming up
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is gonna have to have a suite of battery
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health options that you can mess with in
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the software to take your battery health
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protection to the next level so i don't
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know how fast these phones charging is
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gonna get in the next couple years
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inevitably it's just gonna keep getting
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better as companies work on it but what
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i can tell you
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is the best thing we can do for our
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phones is to just
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use them like normal and basically don't
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give them any extra reason to get hot
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you know leaving it in the dash of your
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car on a sunny day
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gaming while plugged in for long periods
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of time stuff like that if you can avoid
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your phone getting super hot you're
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doing the best thing you can for your
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battery and these smartphone companies
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all know that battery problems are bad
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news so if they're all doing their jobs
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then we should all be good fun fact the
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famous galaxy note 7 battery exploding
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issue as crazy as it was it wasn't
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actually due to fast charging or
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overheating it was actually just them
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with their battery supplier getting some
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dimensions wrong and some bending going
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on of the battery with the positive and
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negative sides up in the corners
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something to think about
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either way now you have the answer
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thanks for watching
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catch you guys in the next one
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peace
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