Samsung Galaxy S23 series will be able to use your charger for direct power, bypassing battery

Ben Schoon | Feb 7 2023 - 9:27 am PT

Gamers using the Galaxy S23 series are in for a bit of a treat, as a new feature on Samsung’s latest flagships allows for savings on heat by allowing a charger to supply power directly to the phone, rather than charging the battery.

First spotted by Malaysia-based YouTube channel NL Tech, a new feature on the Samsung Galaxy S23 series allows users to “Pause USB Power Delivery.” The setting can be found in Samsung’s “Game Booster” menu and is described as follows:

To prevent phone heating, pause charging when a USB Power Delivery enabled charger is connected and the battery is over 20%.

What this feature does is allow for a connected charger to bypass the battery and let the Galaxy S23 run on the charger directly. This cuts out the “middleman” and reduces heat, while also being more efficient for the charger. As shown in the video, enabling this setting reduced power consumption while gaming from 17W down to a mere 6W. Apparently, it works on any USB PD charger.

Interestingly, however, this feature doesn’t seem to be widely available. It isn’t showing up on our Galaxy S23 Ultra, even following an app update to Game Booster. We’re reaching out to Samsung for more information on why this might be the case.

*The feature is greyed out when there’s no charger connected*

This feature is perhaps most useful for “hardware gamers” who are looking to get peak performance in their games. After all, skipping the battery would result in better heat management since batteries tend to heat up while charging, especially when connected to a faster charger.

For most folks, this feature wouldn’t be quite as useful, as it would mean losing the benefit of a fully charged battery following a session playing games while their phone is plugged in.

Samsung never officially announced this feature, so it’s unclear if it plans to bring it to other phones. If this “battery bypass” does expand, though, it seems likely it would either be with One UI 5.1 updates or future releases such as the Galaxy Z Fold 5.