So, We Fast Charged the Samsung Galaxy S6 and This is What Happened

One of the best features that few will give proper praise to with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge is Fast Charging. It’s like Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0, which you know we love. The basics are this – you plug-in your Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge when their batteries are extremely depleted and watch as they quickly charge to a reasonable amount in a short amount of time. Samsung states that you can get four hours of use in just 10 minutes. Awesome, right? 

Fast or quick charging, at least to me, is the future of charging until someone creates a way to fast or quick charge with a wireless charging pad. While wireless charging is certainly convenient, the fact that you can grab hours worth of juice in 10-15 minutes with a fast charger is pretty remarkable. We all push our phones to the limit these days, plus they have bigger, higher-resolution displays and more powerful processors, so chargers are simply something we need on hand throughout a day. If we can spend less time with them, I can’t imagine that anyone will complain.

I wrote up a whole piece on why you should want quick or fast charging in your next phone, so feel free to read that to catch up. Qualcomm also put together this simple video on the different speeds you would see when using a regular charger vs. a fast charger.

But for now, back to the subject at hand. Since the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge both feature Fast Charging, we decided to fully drain the battery (to 5%) on our S6 and then grab the included Fast Charger that Samsung gives you in the box. As expected, it did about what we expected it to.

The initial boost you get is substantial, but then as the battery begins filling up, the charger starts slowing down, more than likely to preserve the integrity of the battery. The good news is that in about 30 minutes, you’ll be right around 50% battery, which is awesome for those of us who continue to struggle to get through a day on a single charge, even in 2015.

Here is the timing breakdown during our charge:

• Started at 5%
• 5 minutes in – 14%
• 15 minutes in – 32%
• 40 minutes in – 76%
• 50 minutes in – 88%
• 72 minutes in – 100%

Again, Samsung gives you an Adaptive Fast Charger in the box with the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, so if you buy these phones, you already get a fast charger and don’t have to go spend any money. With that said, if you want additional chargers, places like Amazon sell Quick Charge 2.0 adapters and Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Chargers ($15). We’ll do some further testing on the Quick Charge 2.0 adapters, but they should fast charge as well. If you plug one into a Galaxy S6, a notification arrives saying that your device is fast charging.

Fast charging! Yes, we love it.