The Galaxy S24 series officially doesn’t have Qi2 support

Ben Schoon | Jan 17 2024 - 1:00 pm PT

Qi2 was announced over a year ago now as the next big thing in wireless charging, bringing the same array of magnets used for Apple’s wildly popular MagSafe to any other device as an industry standard. But we haven’t see it debut in any hardware yet, and Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 series isn’t changing that as all three devices lack support for Qi2.

Wireless charging has been a pretty core part of premium smartphones for the past decade, but the technology hasn’t really changed much in that time. Things have gotten a little faster, a little cooler, but it’s inherently been the same. With Qi2, we’re getting an actual major upgrade.

The focus of Qi2 isn’t on speed but rather on efficiency through better alignment. That’s handled via a ring of magnets that are identical to what Apple uses for MagSafe. In fact, Apple’s iPhone 13 and forward make up the first Qi2 devices. Through those magnets, accessories and phones can better align their charging coils to reduce power loss and heat.

But again, Qi2 hasn’t really shown up in any Android hardware yet.

There are a ton of accessories, and Apple has updated all of its MagSafe iPhones to be Qi2 compliant, but there’s nothing from Android. Many expected Samsung to be the first with the Galaxy S24 series, but that’s not the case.

Samsung will not support the needed hardware for Qi2 on the Galaxy S24 series. The company notes that wireless charging is still supported through the WPC’s Qi standard, but there’s nothing on Qi2. When asked about the lack of Qi2 in a media briefing earlier this month Samsung only mentioned that customers hadn’t been asking for the standard yet.

We’ve asked Samsung for more details and will update this post when they’re available.

Really, this doesn’t come as a major surprise. As we discussed in our newsletter earlier this month, Qi2 was just finalized a couple of months ago, which is not nearly enough time for Samsung to have integrated the standard into its hardware. Most likely, we won’t see any Qi2 phones for a while, with Pixel 9 currently looking like the most likely mainstream candidate.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 series is available for pre-order now, starting at $799. Pre-orders come with doubled storage, boosted trade-ins up to $750, and bonus credit up to $150.

You can get an additional $50 off your purchase on Samsung.com using our exclusive links above.