Apple's new iPhone 8 and 10 support fast charging with USB power delivery but you
have to buy a new USBC power adapter and a USBC lightning cable is it worth the
money I tested charging speeds with five
different adapters to get to the bottom of it before we hop to the results let
me quickly explain how I tested I started with three iPhones
first there's the iPhone 7 plus the most recent iPhone that does not officially
support USB see fast charging I also tested the iPhone 8 plus and iPhone 10
which do support fast charging for each of the phones I drained it down to 1%
made sure no apps were running put it in airplane mode and then plugged it into a
power adapter and recorded the charge percentage every five minutes until the
battery hit a hundred percent these are the five adapters I tested this is the
five watt adapter that comes in the box with every iPhone this is Apple's 12
watt adapter it comes with the iPad but you can buy separately for only 19 bucks
it uses the same lightning cable that came with your phone though this is
Apple's new 29 watt USBC adapter and it costs a whopping $49 this is the power
adapter for a new 13 inch MacBook Pro it has an output of 61 watts and because it
uses the same USB C power delivery standard it should fast charge the new
iPhones just fine finally we're gonna throw the Google pixel adapter into the
mix this $35 18 watt adapter isn't made by Apple but it supports the new USB
power delivery standards so it should work just fine too for any of these USB
C adapters you're going to also need to buy one of these a USB C lightning cable
Apple charges $25 for a 1 meter cable or $35 for a 2 meter cable that's just way
too expensive let's take a look at the iPhone 7 plus first the in box adapter
is just pitifully slow it takes almost two and a half hours to get to 90% and
over three hours to a full charge all of Apple's other adapters charge the phone
about seven he % faster with the USBC adapters going
just as fast as apples 12 watt USBA adapter iPhones prior to the iPhone 8
don't officially support fast charging via USB C but they're clearly capable of
charging much faster than they do with the included 5 watt adapter but look at
the results with the pixel adapter even though apples USB C adapters charge
the phone as fast as the 12 watt adapter googles does not it's still a lot faster
than the 5 watt adapter though moving up to the iPhone 8 plus we see a slightly
different story the included 5 watt adapter is just as
slow two and a half hours to 90% and over three hours to a full charge and
the 12:1 adapter charges at the same speed as the iPhone 7 plus 90 minutes to
90% and a full charge in about 2 hours 20 minutes so with the 5 or 12 watt USBA
adapters it's the same as older iPhones but the USBC adapters even the Google
pixel adapter are all a little bit faster than that where they weren't on
the 7 plus we're seeing USB power delivery at work here all these adapters
can deliver as many watts as the phones can handle so there's really no
substantial difference between an 18 watt third-party adapter and a 61 watt
Apple main adapter all three USB C adapters are maybe 25% faster than the
12 watt adapter the iPhone 10 was so similar to the eight plus that the
differences are just within the margin of error for this sort of thing the 8
plus charged just a tiny bit faster which could be thanks to better thermal
dissipation or maybe the iPhone tens unique to battery internal design so
here's the thing no matter which phone you have the 12 watt adapter gets you
most of the way there and it's only 19 bucks and doesn't require a new
lightning cable the USBC adapters get you just a little more speed but only if
you have an iPhone 8 8 + or 10 and you got to buy a really expensive new USBC
lightning cable - my recommendation whether you have a newer or an older
phone the Apple $19 12 watt adapter is a great buy it dramatically improves
charging times and works with the same cable that came with your phone the USBC
adapters just aren't worth the extra money
so check below if you want to see more data or links to any of these products
an apple if you're listening it's long past time to stop packing five watt
power adapters in the box when you're selling phones that cost seven hundred
to a thousand dollars or more there's just no excuse to cheap out on this we
pay for a premium experience and that includes charging our phones in less
than three hours