Pixel 9 raises the bar for fast charging, should apply to other Android phones too

Ben Schoon | Aug 30 2024 - 8:36 am PT

The Pixel 9 series has way better battery life, but it also delivers improvements to charging. One of those improvements is that the Pixel 9 has higher requirements for fast charging, helping you better know if your charger is truly up to speed.

For years, Android has considered any charger over 7.5W to be “fast,” leading to a “Charging rapidly” message appearing on the lockscreen of Pixel phones for basically anything but the bare minimum of modern smartphone chargers. As such, there was no visual difference to users between a slow sub-10W charger versus something actually fast, like Google’s 30W charger that was sold with the past few Pixel devices.

That’s finally changing this year.

Starting with the Pixel 9, Google has tweaked the threshold for “charging rapidly” to a minimum of 20W, more than double the previous limit as spotted by Android Authority. That’s on the Pixel 9 at least, which charges at up to 27W (37W for the Pro XL). It’d be surprising if this was a universal change seeing as there are still plenty of phones, such as the Pixel 8a, which max out around 18W. It’s not clear right now, though, when this change might apply to newer phones, but it should in time.

With the Pixel 9, one of the ways you’ll see that “charging rapidly” indicator is with the new 45W charger, but anything over 20W should do the trick.