Oppo F1 Plus VOOC Flash Charge – How effective is it?

Smartphones these days features bigger displays, mightier processors and the designers have to take a middle path to include a decent battery and still strive to retain a slim profile. Unfortunately, battery life still struggles to cope up with the needs of heavy-usage smartphone users and while power banks are seen as convenient backup,  reducing re-charge times makes better sense. So we see various terms used commonly ‘fast’ , ‘quick’ , ‘rapid’ and ‘turbo’ and OEM’s and chipset makers adopting different propreitory technology. We have Qualcomm’s quick charge (QC), MediaTek’s PumpExpress, Samsung’s rebranded QC which goes by the name Adaptive fast technolghy, Motorola’s Turbo Power system and amidst all these, Oppo has its own VOOC Fash charging technology. While they recently also announced their next generation Super VOOC technology, it’s yet to go commercial. Oppo F1 Plus, the Smartphone the company calls it as ‘the Selfie expert’ makes use of VOOC Fast charging feature. The F1 Plus has a 2850 mAh battery and let’s see how fast it can recharge itself using VOOC. Usually the fast charge technology uses a simple route. More watts equals more power and increased power at disposal means the Smartphones can charge quick. While it sounds seemingly easy, effectively implementing calls for adept research. Let’s not delve into the battery technology subject (it can get really boring and I might do a separate post!) You are propably here because you are interested in Oppo F1 Plus and want to see how fast it can charge and how effective VOOC technology is. One foremost thing, for the VOOC to be in action, you need a special charger or the one OPPO packs along with the box. Remember, I mentioned earlier we need more watts? You need a charger that supports or pass through a higher watts for your Oppo F1 Plus. If you see the fine print of the charger Oppo packs in, it would read 5V – 4A , watts is arrived by multiplying the current (measured in amps) by the voltage (measured in volts) so, the Oppo’s charger transfers maximum 20 Watts, and the VOOC technology supports the higher consumption. During the test, I charged the Oppo from complete shut down to full charge, I noted down manually the various charge time log. I ran the test twice and also noted if the phone heats up during the quick charge process. I collated the log into a graph and this is how it stands. It took 66 minutes to charge entirely the 2850mAh battery of the Oppo F1 Plus. While it is definitely faster,  there are more interesting insights the log offers. A mere 2 minutes of charge is what needed to get a 5% refill during emergency and a 5 minute charge time to fuel up 10% of the F1 Plus battery. Further up, a 11 minutes can tank up to 25% and 23 minutes is what takes to reach the halfway mark. A neat 34 minutes can work its way up to 75%. Usually the final stage i.e, beyond 80% takes time to reach the full charge mark, the power flow is reduced and all phones go slow during this charging stage. It takes a good 32 minutes for Oppo F1 Plus to fully charge from here. But when you are in a hurry, you can go really fast up to 75% and that is where the VOOC technology gets its credit for. Now let’s see how much heat is dissipated. While the phone was charging, I collated the heat log and to my surprise the F1 Plus didn’t show any signs of heating up. It merely shot up by a degree which is remarkable. Oppo has fitted the current control circuit to the charger and this wards off the heat from the Smartphones internals, which is also good for the phone’s components. So the Oppo F1 Plus impresses with the VOOC fast charging technology, it is replenishes the battery juice quickly and effectively.]]>