Thanks to a super-fast 300-watt charger, a phone with a 4,100 mAh battery is fully charged in just under five minutes.

What is the limit of fast charging for a smartphone? After a technology presentation by Xiaomi last year that introduced 210-watt fast charging, Realme (part of the Oppo and Oneplus family) has moved the line to 240-watt charging. The Chinese get-together is now being taken to the extreme with the launch of 300-watt fast charging at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

What does that mean specifically? A 4,100 mAh battery is fully charged in just under 5 minutes. Xiaomi did the demo with a modified Redmi Note 12 Pro+. It only takes a minute to charge 20 percent. A 50 percent charge takes just over two minutes.

The phone does not fully support this high charging capacity, but it lasts surprisingly long with an output of between 280 watts and 290 watts. Check out the result below:

Why necessary?

According to Xiaomi, the faster charging speed is due to more powerful 15C battery cells that use carbon instead of conventional graphite parts. This allows the Chinese manufacturer to reduce the thickness of the electrodes by 35 percent. Combined with an improved electrolyte formula, it can be charged and discharged faster without generating excessive heat.

Xiaomi uses more than 50 functions in the system to ensure battery safety. Among other things, it continuously monitors current, voltage and temperature on each charging chip.

The manufacturer does not reveal how much battery stress the lightning-fast charger causes. The number of charging cycles is also not shared, which makes the concept an interesting pilot project for the time being.

Whether 300-watt fast charging is really necessary is a completely different discussion. Already today you can charge the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra or OnePlus from 11 to 50 percent in less than 10 minutes. A sprint to 80 percent takes 16 minutes. Fine by our standards: even recharging with a quick breakfast is enough to get you through the day.