iPhone 8 Fast Charging Isn’t Such a Big Deal as Apple Claimed It to Be

One of the highlights of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X is fast charging, a feature that has been available on Android devices for many years, but which only now makes it to Apple’s flagship product.

But to truly enjoy fast charging on the iPhone 8, you need to purchase some extra gear, including a 29W USB-C Power Adapter (61W and 87W adapters work too) for $50 from Apple and a USB-C to Lightning cable, which costs $25. This means you need to spend $75 more only to get fast charging work on your brand-new iPhone.

But as long-time iPhone users probably know already, some kind of fast charging was already available on the iPhone when the iPad charger was used, though this system wasn’t exactly a fast charging feature per se. This is because the iPad charger offers twice more the power of an iPhone adapter, as it generates 10W or 12W depending on iPad model.

This means an iPad charger should charge the iPhone substantially faster than the 5W adapter offered by Apple, but way slower than when using a 29W adapter with fast charging support on the iPhone 8.

Fast charging not that fast

And yet, it turns out this isn’t necessarily true, as Dan Loewenherz has performed a series of tests to determine the charging times of the iPhone when using different adapters. What he did was measure the time needed by each adapter to push the iPhone to 50 percent battery level, and the results speak for themselves: the difference between the iPad adapter and the fast charger are insignificant, which makes the $75 price tag pretty ridiculous.

In numbers, the 29W charger that Apple recommends for fast charging brought the iPhone 8 Plus to 50 percent battery level in 33 minutes, whereas the 12W iPad adapter did the same thing in 37 minutes, so it needed only 4 minutes to provide the same performance.

The 61W adapter proved to be the fastest, as it offered 50 percent of battery level in just 29 minutes.

So there you go, fast charging not only that costs a fortune on the iPhone 8, but it’s also significantly slower than it should be. Just Apple things.