Recently, a source revealed that relevant manufacturers may carry out a round of "big leap forward" in the battery capacity of mobile phones, and a variety of batteries using silicon anode materials may be applied to new models, and the batteries of some flagship products may exceed 6000mAh. In this regard, there is a view that this also means that smartphones are expected to usher in fundamental improvements in battery life and bring users a better experience.
In the perception of many users, the flagship model should be significantly different from other products in terms of hardware configuration and functions. Although this view is valid in most cases, after all, the function and hardware combination scheme of mobile phones need to comprehensively consider all factors, and simple stacking and superimposition cannot fully meet the diverse needs of users, and the limitations of related technologies often make manufacturers fall into a dilemma, such as the choice of battery capacity and fast charging power plague mobile phone manufacturers.
Previously, due to the limitations of battery-related technology, smartphones needed to find a balance between battery capacity and volume. In addition, in today's fierce market competition, consumers' requirements for flagship product performance, imaging and other aspects are constantly increasing, so in order to ensure that the demand is met, mobile phone manufacturers have to reserve more space for components such as image modules and cooling systems in the limited body space.
However, due to the limitation of the energy density of the battery at that time, the body size could only be exchanged for the increase in capacity, so on the premise of ensuring product power, if you want to improve the endurance, it will only lead to the body size being too free. In this context, manufacturers can obviously only make appropriate trade-offs in various solutions, coupled with the energy consumption problems of components such as flagship SoCs and top CMOS, resulting in the performance of such models in terms of battery life is often not very satisfactory.
It is worth mentioning that although the current fast charging technology has developed to a certain height, there is still a contradiction between high-power fast charging and high-energy-density batteries at this stage. In addition, high energy density is often difficult to coexist with the stability of the battery, which is actually determined by the physical characteristics of the battery, and this problem is likely to continue in the absence of significant progress in battery material technology.
Therefore, after taking into account factors such as cost, security, and user experience, mobile phone manufacturers can usually only choose a relatively balanced solution, such as a battery capacity of about 5000mAh with 100-watt fast charging, to ensure that users have a battery life experience above the level line, and at the same time, there is a relatively high charging efficiency, and the cost and risk can be controlled to a certain extent.
Now, with the upgrade of the new flagship SoC in terms of energy efficiency, as well as the advancement of battery-related technology, especially silicon anode technology, there are more possibilities for flagship models to be equipped with large-capacity batteries. Among them, the improved energy efficiency ratio of the SoC means that it can achieve more energy saving and power saving under the same performance, thereby extending the battery life. Silicon anode battery technology can further improve the energy density and safety of batteries.
In order to break through the "shackles" brought about by the limitations of technology in the past, and there have been precedents for thin and light folding screen phones such as vivo X Fold3 Pro to be equipped with large-capacity batteries. While ensuring core product capabilities such as imaging and performance, it also provides a 5,700mAh battery and 100-watt fast charging.
Previously, fast charging technology once became the focus of the mobile phone industry, and related manufacturers were competing to quickly promote the peak power of wired fast charging. The deeper reason for this is that at that time, limited by battery technology, while the energy density and battery volume were difficult to be effectively improved, in the face of users' increasing demand for battery life, manufacturers also had to take measures to improve charging efficiency to achieve the purpose of enhancing battery life in disguise.
However, fast charging is obviously not without shortcomings, such as the heating problem associated with high-power fast charging, which will not only affect the user experience, but also may have hidden safety risks. For this reason, mobile phone manufacturers have to add various security solutions to charging adapters, mobile phones, and cables, which not only leads to the rapid "bloat" of the charger, but also brings adverse effects such as rising costs and declining experience. At the same time, the problem of the incompatibility between higher energy density and high-power fast charging of batteries further limits the subsequent development of this solution.
It is worth mentioning that although there have been previous opinions that the heating problem of high-power fast charging will adversely affect the battery life, this has also proved to be the "old yellow calendar". At present, almost all mobile phone batteries are designed with long life, which not only provides support for high-power fast charging, but also usually has a cycle life of more than 1,600 times, and some models even provide an after-sales strategy of battery replacement for four years. In addition, most Android manufacturers charge relatively low fees for after-sales service such as battery replacement, so this view is actually not very tenable.
As the current mobile phone manufacturers' "frenzy" for high-power fast charging gradually cools down, one of the important reasons is that the mainstream 100-watt fast charging has achieved a good balance between cost and user experience, so manufacturers can also invest resources in other aspects. However, it should be noted that large-capacity batteries are obviously more able to directly hit the pain points of users than high-power fast charging, so from the perspective of meeting user needs, the former is obviously the most effective solution.
Of course, the application of large-capacity batteries will not lead to the stagnation of the development of fast charging technology, and the two are actually complementary, after all, with the continuous growth of battery capacity, users' requirements for charging efficiency will also increase accordingly. Therefore, the combination of the two is bound to be closer in the future, so as to jointly promote the common progress of mobile phones in battery life and charging efficiency.
The continuous improvement of the battery capacity and fast charging power of today's flagship mobile phones is undoubtedly the result of technological innovation and user demand. In the past, mobile phone manufacturers had to rely on fast charging to indirectly improve battery life due to battery-related technology, but with the advancement of related technologies, the cooperation of large-capacity batteries and high-power fast charging has also complemented each other, which not only meets users' expectations for battery life, but also takes into account the convenience of fast charging.