Nubia is a China-based company that is primarily known for making gaming phones. Previously, it was a subsidiary of ZTE, but since 2017, it's considered to be an independent associate company after ZTE reduced its stake in it to 49.9%. In 2019, it released the Nubia Red Magic 3 gaming phone (review), which was an affordable Qualcomm Snapdragon 855-powered flagship with a 90Hz AMOLED display. In the second half of the year, it released the Nubia Z20 (review) with dual displays. While Nubia isn't as well-known as the established market players in China, it's managed to create its own niche. Earlier this month, its President and co-founder Ni Fei had revealed that its next flagship would have a 144Hz display---a feature supported by the new flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC. Now, Mr. Fei has shared a post on Weibo that reveals another major feature of its upcoming Red Magic flagship: 80W fast charging.

Nubia Red Magic phone featuring 80W fast charging

The post shared by Mr. Fei shows a photo of an upcoming Nubia phone that is using 9.6A at 8.4V. This means it's being charged at 80W using the USB Type-C Power Delivery protocol. The phone in question should debut as the Nubia Red Magic 5G. MWC is a probable launch time-frame, although it's possible that Nubia could skip the event and launch the phone later.

Update: AndroidPolice reached out to the USB-IF, the organization responsible for creating the USB standard, to confirm that the specific charging rate shown by Nubia in this teaser is incompatible with the official USB Power Delivery specification. What this means is that the implementation that is being used is likely proprietary and may not be compatible with your existing USB-PD chargers. We will have to wait for this fast charging technology to make its way into a shipping device to confirm, however.

Currently, OPPO has the honor of having the quickest fast charging solution on the market, known as 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 charging. Right now, it's only used in the OPPO Reno Ace, while the Realme X2 Pro (review) uses a 50W version of SuperVOOC. We expect the upcoming OPPO Find X2 to also feature 65W fast charging, though. Xiaomi's upcoming flagship, the Mi 10 Pro, will feature 66W fast charging. Both Xiaomi and OPPO have demoed 100W and 120W fast charging solutions in 2019, although they haven't made their way to any shipping phone yet.

The upcoming Nubia Red Magic 5G flagship phone, therefore, will probably be the fastest charging on the market when it debuts with 80W fast charging. It's not all good news, though. There are concerns about how this rate of fast charging will quickly deteriorate the life span of the phone's battery. Vendors such as OPPO and Xiaomi have implemented safety procedures, but we still haven't got the complete answers. Samsung has chosen to go with USB-C Power Delivery 3.0 standardized fast charging in the Galaxy Note 10 series (and also in the upcoming Galaxy S20 series).

The Nubia Red Magic 5G will feature the Snapdragon 865 SoC and a 144Hz display, but not much is known about the rest of its specifications. We expect to learn more about Nubia's upcoming flagship in the time frame leading up to its launch.

Source: Nubia | Via: Android Central