Chinese smartphone maker Meizu claims its Super mCharge technology can recharge batteries in as little as 20 minutes.
To prove its point, the company demonstrated the superfast charging capabilities during a press conference on the show floor of Mobile World Congress, which is being held in Barcelona.
The charging speed is even faster than Qualcomm's recently introduced Quick Charge 4.0, which "is engineered to charge a typical smartphone from zero to 50 percent in about 15 minutes or less," the chip maker claimed in a statement.
The charging demonstration was via a USB Type-C port, and the smartphone carried a 3,000-milliamp hour battery, which is the capacity range in newer smartphones. The trick is offloading some of the charging pressure off the battery to the USB cable, which can carry a maximum of 160 watts of power.
Meizu will bring the technology to its own phones later this year and ultimately, the company wants to sell it to other brands, said Damon Li, technology director for research and development at Meizu.
The Super mCharge succeeds the mCharge technology. The recharging cable reaches 98 percent efficiency, Meizu said, but also costs three times more than conventional USB Type-C chargers.
Faster charging is among a handful of features boasted by smartphone makers when introducing handsets. The race is intensifying, and most smartphones introduced at MWC have Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0, which takes a little under an hour, more or less, to fully charge a smartphone.
