Since its arrival, the OnePlus power bank has taken a lot of heat because it charges even its own devices very slowly. Here is an explanation of the reason for such an issue.
If you prefer to watch a video on the issue see below.
Let’s start with the cover of the Power bank. OnePlus was very open about the capabilities of its first power bank. Supported output currents and voltages are clearly mentioned on the package itself. Nowhere in the documentation, they say it supports any of the fast charging technologies boasted by OnePlus phones.
Fast charging technologies in OnePlus phones.
Fast charging was one of the strong points of OnePlus phones since OnePlus 3. Initially, the fast charging technology was termed Dash Charging. Unlike other fast charging technologies, OnePlus employed higher currents instead of higher voltage. For example, Dash charging was 5v 4Amps giving an output of 20W.
OnePlus then upgraded the tech in OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition to Warp charging that supported 5V 6Amps giving 30W output. Further improvements resulted in Warp 65 which charges phones at 10V and 6.5 Amps giving out a whooping 65W power.
The output of the OnePlus Power Bank
Now when you see the output of the power bank, it supports only 3Amps at 5V. That’s even less than the dash charge which is 4 Amps at 5 volts.
So this is insufficient to support fast charging technology used in OnePlus Phones
OnePlus chargers are considerably bigger than most other chargers. This is due to the fact that the conversion occurs inside the charger and not inside the phone. This has a good effect. It keeps the phone cool while charging. The issue with this kind of setup is that use of a non-standard charger might damage a OnePlus phone. To prevent such issues there is a protective mechanism. If a non-standard cable or a non-standard charger is used, the charging speed will fall back to 5V 1.5 Amps giving the phone only a 7.5W charging.
This is what is happening with OnePlus Power Banks. When a OnePlus device is charging from the OnePlus power bank, the speed reverts to 7.5W (7W in my testing). This is much lower than the capability of the power bank itself.
This protective response resulted in a lot of disgruntled users as OnePlus charged around double the asking price of other popular power banks. A lot of OnePlus phone users still bought the device unaware of such restrictions and became irritated with the charging speed of the OnePlus Power Bank.
I feel like OnePlus should have thought of its users before releasing such a product. You can see in the pic above that the power bank is not manufactured by OnePlus it is actually made by Oppo.
Hope I explained the issue in sufficient detail so that you understood why the OnePlus Power Bank is charging even the OnePlus devices slowly
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