Update: OPPO has responded to the battery degradation claim by sharing results from its lab test and that of TUV Rheinland that show that the OPPO Ace2 retains a battery capacity of over 90% after 800 charge cycles. See bottom of the page for update.
Original story follows below:
Stupendously fast charging has become a key feature in phones these days. It is no longer unheard of to see a phone being able to charge from empty to full in under an hour. However, while fast charging is a great feature to have, a common question that comes up is the effect on the battery.
A tweet by Andrei F. (“andreif7) of AnandTech has revealed that OPPO‘s 40W VOOC fast charging technology degrades a phone’s battery to 70% in the same number of cycles it will take a 15W fast charger to degrade a battery to 90%. The tweet specifically said the info was confirmed to them
In reply to a question, he clarified that the conversation was from almost 1.5 years ago. OPPO’s current fastest wired charging technology is its SuperVOOC 2.0 fast charge technology which supports 65W fast charging. Does this mean the battery degrades even faster?
Oppo outright confirmed to us that their 40W degrades to 70% capacity in the same cycles 15W would to 90%. It's all a crock of shit marketing race seeking to have the bigger numbers.
— Andrei F. (@andreif7) May 8, 2020
The press release for SuperVOOC 2.0 does say there are safety measures built into the adapter, wire, and phone to ensure your phone is safe during charging but it doesn’t say anything (not surprising) about the long-term effects on the battery.
Based on this, can one say this is the reason why manufacturers such as Nokia, Apple, and Google have stuck to 18W fast charging? Maybe, maybe not.
We hope manufacturers will be more transparent with respect to the long-term effect of regularly charging your phone at the fastest charge possible when they announce new fast-charging technologies.
Update
OPPO’s response shows a table detailing the battery degradation over different charge cycles. The first table in the image shows the battery degradation test carried out in OPPO’s own laboratory while the second table shows TUV Rheinland’s own battery degradation test.
As you can see, the results are close and the battery retains an average capacity of over 91% after 600 charge cycles. Even after 800 charge cycles which should be roughly two years of use, the capacity is still over 90%.
Going by the above results, by the time the battery capacity drops to 80%, the phone should be well into its third year of use or even more. A lot of people begin to think of replacing their phones after 2 years of use.
Let us not also forget that some manufacturers offer battery replacement programs for some of their devices especially popular models which means a user can hold on to their phone for even longer.
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