The fast-charging wars are over. Now it’s time to fix USB-C

You don’t have to be an old timer to remember when charging power was once a major differential for the best smartphones. The long march to 40W charging quickly spiraled into a spec war that spawned countless rival standards: HyperCharge, SuperVOOC, SuperCharge, Samsung AFC, Apple 2.4A. and Qualcomm’s Quick Charge as options for brands unable to build their own. It was a mess, and we’ve been dealing with the fallout ever since when trying to buy fast-charging accessories for all our gadgets.

Eventually, the universal USB Power Delivery specification caught up in raw power in the USB-C era, but this was further complicated by branching enhancements such as EDR for laptops and PPS for low-power devices. It’s taken years for the standard to reach capabilities that match what rival proprietary standards have long offered. Thankfully, we’re now at the point where the power wars are over; it’s time to consolidate around the sensible universal option.

If you look at the past two or three generations of the fastest-charging phones, power levels have plateaued. While you’ll still find the odd marketing claim breaching the 100W barrier, 60-80W of real deliverable power appears to be the most that we can throw at our compact smartphone batteries. And that’s plenty fast, too. Even the largest 7,000 mAh phone batteries can be fully charged in about 40 minutes.

There are stragglers, of course. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra has only recently closed the gap on the industry’s fastest, but the popular iPhone and Pixel series remain some way behind. This is especially true when we look outside the top-of-the-range flagship — baseline models are often notably slower.

Still, peel back the numbers, and there’s something more important at play. The fastest charging phones are increasingly less dependent on their proprietary protocols to achieve fast charging times and power (which is seldom sustained for more than a few minutes anyway). We’re now at the point where universal standards have caught the proprietary models and offer broader accessory compatibility to boot.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an extreme example, promising up to 90W over the everyday USB Power Delivery PPS specification. Likewise, the OnePlus 15 and OPPO Find X9 Ultra can hit above 40W via PPS as well, with only a minor impact on full charge times. The key factor is that the average power draw during fast charging is often well below 40W, regardless of whether you use SuperVOOC or Power Delivery.

Unfortunately, it’s too early to celebrate just yet. The mess that is the USB charging landscape means that even consolidating around Power Delivery remains a challenge. Today, even if two phones can receive more than 50W under this universal specification, it doesn’t mean consumers will easily achieve it when they shop for third-party chargers and power banks.

For example, Motorola’s TurboPower spec is based on the USB PD specification but requires a special E-marked USB-C cable rated at 6.5A to reach its 60W rating. Fail that test and you’re stuck with sluggish power rates. Google’s Pixel 10 Pro XL throws a spanner in the works by working nicely with 9V/3A charging for 27W but requiring a 20V/1.6A-capable plug to hit their peak 37W.

Even within Samsung’s pretty decent ecosystem, 9V/5A and 16V/3A are used to achieve 45W charging, depending on the model, and you’ll need a different cable for the 5A option. Picking the right USB-C charger and cable can still be a problem even within the same ecosystem. Apple hasn’t helped the situation by moving towards USB PD AVS for optimized iPhone 17 charging rather than Android’s pick of USB PD PPS — though at least it retains compatibility with the main standard.

So how does this problem get fixed?

The good news is that the technical foundations already exist. USB Power Delivery PPS can dynamically adjust voltage and current to closely mirror the behavior of many proprietary charging standards. In practice, that means manufacturers no longer need entirely separate ecosystems to deliver fast, battery-friendly charging.

The challenge is that companies continue to implement the standard differently. Different voltage profiles, current limits, cable requirements, and certification programs create friction where there should be simplicity. Consumers shouldn’t need to understand the difference between 9V/5A and 20V/2A, PPS ranges, E-marker requirements, or AVS support just to buy a charger that works at full speed. And that’s another problem: brands continue to be terrible at signifying when a device is actually charging optimally.

Fortunately, manufacturers aren’t the only stakeholders pushing the industry toward consistency. If phone makers won’t standardize voluntarily, the accessory market might well do it for them.

Proprietary standards are already seldom supported by third-party power banks and plugs, which has helped push the market toward USB Power Delivery. There’s also been a gradual increase in support for both higher-voltage PPS capabilities and Apple’s AVS implementation, helping modern chargers cover more devices than ever before. However, this is often reserved only for the more expensive models.

Ultimately, a charger that powers a laptop, tablet, phone, earbuds, and a portable gaming device is far more appealing than one optimized for a single smartphone brand. The paradigm is thankfully shifting; it’s no longer about buying the right charger for a specific device, but about finding the one that powers all your gadgets. Unfortunately, that still requires busywork and more knowledge than most consumers should be expected to have, but it’s becoming slightly easier each year.

The industry has spent more than a decade fighting over charging standards. With charging speeds now largely plateaued, interoperability remains the final challenge. The next phase isn’t about reaching 150W or 200W — it’s about ensuring that any decent USB-C charger can deliver the performance consumers expect, regardless of the logo on the phone.