Lei Jun once said, “When many of our counterparts compare themselves to us, then, that means that Xiaomi has already become the gold standard.” In June, the Mi 4 was released keeping Xiaomi as the gold standard. The writer cannot just come to conclusions but the Mi 4’s specs and power consumption are disappointing but also a pleasant surprise. I will not talk about what is disappointing about it for now and just focus on why it is a pleasant surprise.
Just as the title mentions, the pleasant surprise is that the Mi 4 is Quick Charge-supported. Does this function work for the Mi 4 as well as Lei Jun said? Let’s take a look.
Why does the Mi 4 need Quick Charge?
It makes sense to say that today’s smart phones are growing more powerful at an astronomical rate. Take their processing chips, for example. In just a few years, we have gone from using single-core processors to eight-core processors. Unfortunately, there has not been any real improvement in battery charging.
Although there has been improvement in cell phone batteries, it has only been limited to battery safety and charge cycles. The level of power supply has none grown a lot. The only way to improve battery performance is to increase the battery supply or use Quick Charge.
Until now, Xiaomi has only used the former but although the Mi 3’s battery supply grew from the 2000mAh in the Mi 2 to 3050mAh, it only grew to 3080mAh for the Mi 4. Only 30mAH! This has not been the most effective method given the limited space provided by the phone. Therefore, adding Quick Charge is necessary.
Can the Mi 4 handle Qualcomm Quick Charge?
The Mi 4’s charger is called the Xiaomi Smart Charger and comes in three standards, 5V, 2A/9V, 1.2A/12V, and 1A. This charger can also be used with other devices as well.
We start charging the phone a 0%. For the first 40 minutes the screen glows and WIFI is turned own. Later, we closed the screen and WIFI but still keep the phone on.
After 13 minutes, we can see that the Mi 4 is already 15% charged. After 25 minutes, setting 10 minutes as the standard, we started calculating the rate at which the battery is charged.
Based on the results, when the screen and WIFI are closed, we can see that the MI 4 can be charged up to 49% in one hour and be fully charged in two hours. When the phone is completely turned off, it can charge up to 60% in one hour and be fully charged in two and a half hours. As the graph shows, the results we got in charging the Mi 4 are close to the official results by Xiaomi.
Conclusion
As you can see from this test, the Mi 4’s Quick Charge mode goes well with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and the phone’s power management system, but it might sacrifice battery life. Nevertheless, it will definitely be an asset in future cell phones.
