As we discussed in our recent preview of Mobile World Congress 2017, Meizu promised to "unveil the newest breakthrough in mobile technology – challenging Apple and Samsung". This year was the Chinese manufacturer"s first visit to MWC - a sign of its growing global ambitions.
Today, the company held a press conference at MWC at which it announced breakthrough battery charging technology. Building on its existing mCharge tech, the company announced Super mCharge, with "accelerated charging speed" of up to 5.5 times faster than its previous best, following over 12 months of research and development.
Rather than simply make the claim and expect the media to accept it, Meizu demonstrated the speed of Super mCharge with a real-time on-stage demo. In just 18 minutes, Meizu charged one of its flagship phones with a 3000mAh battery from 0% to 100%. It took less than eight minutes to reach 50%.
In comparison, many other manufacturers suggest that buyers of their latest flagship smartphones should expect to get around 50% battery charge from roughly 30-40 minutes of charging, using Quick Charge 3.0 technology.
Meizu insists that Super mCharge is "safer and secure", saying today:
Only half of the electric current is needed to reach the same power, and its innovative and efficient structure reduces heat generated and problems. The data cable and USB port have been redesigned to leave enough area for the cache, with additional design measures taken to ensure safe charging, including a voltage monitoring system, electric current monitoring system and a 10-level safety protection means.
It added that the battery retains over 80% of its total capacity "even after 800 complete charge and discharge cycles. Based our data analysis, the battery"s service life now exceeds more than two years."
There"s no doubting that this is a hugely impressive development by Meizu"s engineering team - but it remains to be seen whether or not it will encourage more people to purchase one of the company"s devices.