Why I pick flexible charging over raw speed every single time

Regular Android Authority readers will know I’m a stickler for brilliant battery life backed up by proper fast charging. And by that, I don’t necessarily mean the faster the better, a battery needs to remain cool too. Instead, one of my top requirements for any phone that claims to charge quickly is that it has to be able to do so regardless of what plug you have at hand. It’s absolutely no good to anyone to boast 100W charging from a specific plug, only for your power banks to trickle in the juice when you need it most.

Fortunately, brands are improving support for the most common charging standards. However, there are holdouts, particularly among the larger names. Apple is stubbornly fixed to sub-25W charging, as are Samsung’s non-Ultra flagships, while Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL requires a rare protocol to achieve its hardly groundbreaking 37W power level.

Poor might be harsh, but these brands are hardly the best, especially compared to the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, which does everything right in my testing. That’s right, previously the home of proprietary cables and plugs, Xiaomi’s latest handset charges quickly with virtually anything now. But you shouldn’t have to spend a small fortune for a phone to charge optimally, if you can even get your hands on it at all. That’s why I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well the more affordable OnePlus 13 handles my charging gauntlet.

As a hoarder of cables and USB plugs, I have a wide range of different models dotted around my home. Some boast the latest USB PD PPS standards, some are the more classic USB PD 3.0, and I even still have a few USB-A ports floating around that sport various older quick charging standards. I’m always interested to see how phones perform with all these options and not just their optimal, often brand-specific plug. The OnePlus 13? It passes with flying colors.

As you can see in the table above, you’ll still obtain the fastest results with a specific SuperVOOC plug — though 65W is far from the highest power level on the market today. However, an increasingly standard USB PD PPS plug will net you pretty similar time to full, thanks to about 45W of power. A twelve-minute difference isn’t much at all.

Even with a lower power 30W PPS plug, the time to full remains under an hour, faster than some rival flagships charge in their fastest configurations. This is exactly how I’ve been charging the phone; my clunky SuperVOOC plug remains firmly in its box. I’m charging the OnePlus 13 reasonably quickly with the same power PPS brick that charges my laptop, headphones, Pixel, and more. I can well imagine that I’m not alone in this practice.

Older standards are less quick, but that’s to be expected. 150 minutes from the ubiquitous USB PD 3.0 is slow but hardly unusual. Many phones charge at 18W from these ports, some draw less, and a rare few will run up to 27W. A USB-A-based Quick Charge 2.0 port is equally slow, but 18W remains better than nothing. Still, the good news is that you’ll receive pretty much whatever speed a modern USB PD PPS charger can provide, up to a reasonably fast 45W, and at least some power from older plugs, giving users plenty of options for both wall plugs and, increasingly, power banks too.

If OnePlus isn’t your thing, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is also an excellent phone for charging support — even if it’s not as fast and costs considerably more. It’ll manage 45W via PPS, 24W over PD 3.0, and 15W on an old Quick Charge port. That’s a solid range, ensuring it’ll charge at least somewhat quickly from any plug you happen to have at hand. It’s just a shame the rest of the series doesn’t charge quite so quickly.

This brings me to my final point: we’ve seen that wide fast-charging support can be achieved in very expensive flagships. The OnePlus 13 accomplished the same feat in a more affordable package, and now it’s time for more affordable phones to charge quickly and universally, too.

Hopefully, Samsung’s rumored 45W Galaxy S25 FE will come to pass and push Apple, Google, and others to up their game in their more affordable segments as well. Out of the big three, Samsung is also pushing the boundaries with the Galaxy A56 5G, outshining many other budget models that rely on proprietary fast charging or simply stick with something slow. We’re getting there, slowing but surely.

Of course, it’s easy to get swept up in the numbers game of watts and minutes, and you’d be right to highlight that charging isn’t just about speed. Heat is the silent killer of lithium-ion batteries, and even the best smart charging algorithms can’t always counteract the long-term impact of repeated high-wattage top-ups. Many phones now implement staged charging — blasting power early, then slowing down past 80% — but, just like their opaque power claims, not all brands are transparent about how this affects long-term battery health.

This is especially important as upgrades increasingly push past the old two-to-three-year cycle, stretching to four, five, or even longer. A battery degraded by aggressive charging may end up at 80% health in less than two years, shortening the useful lifespan of your phone and potentially increasing e-waste. That’s why broad support for moderate-speed universal standards like USB PD 3.0 and PD PPS isn’t just about convenience — it’s also about giving users more charging choices. You can plug in at moderate but not painstakingly slow rates to preserve battery health, if that’s a concern. Ideally, you’d be able to pick up a 20, 30, or 40W charger or power bank and know it’ll just work — some phones are there ,but many still aren’t.

There are really three considerations here, then: buyer convenience in terms of using existing plugs, reducing plug and cable e-waste, and giving consumers more choice about the power level they feel comfortable with. Ultimately, charging flexibility isn’t just a nerdy spec sheet bonus; it’s a real-world quality-of-life improvement. Whether you want to juice up quickly before heading out, charge more gently overnight, or keep using the trusty plugs already scattered around your home, broad multi-standard support makes it all possible — and that means fewer unnecessary accessories clogging drawers or landfills.

So while it’s tempting to crown the fastest phone the winner, perhaps we should be applauding those that let us charge how we want, when we want, and with what we already have. That’s the kind of user-first approach that protects your wallet, extends your phone’s life, and cuts down on drawer clutter — or even future landfill.