We Tested 33 New Phones to See Which Charge Fastest and Crown 2 Winners

Key takeaways:

• Apple’s iPhone 17 series has the fastest recharge speeds, with the iPhone 17 Pro getting the fastest overall
• Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra has the fastest wired charging, thanks to its new 60-watt charging speed
• Silicon-carbon batteries have faster charging speeds, but limited availability

For many of us, how long our phone lasts before dying is one of its most important features. Right behind battery life, however, we prioritize how quickly our phone charges when it’s almost out of power. When I have a long day, am planning to go out after work or if I’m traveling with extended time out and about, being able to recharge my device as much as possible can mean the difference between it powering through to the end of the day or dying when I need it for my commute home.

I’m far from alone in that situation. In CNET’s 2026 smartphone survey, 58% of respondents report frustrations with their phone’s battery life, and 31% say their phone’s battery doesn’t hold a charge as well as it did when it was new.

Read more: Smartphone Owners Aren’t Convinced to Upgrade for Foldable Designs and AI Integrations, CNET Finds

Fortunately, charging speed is one of the areas we’ve seen phones improve over the past few years. Faster wired charging speeds are appearing on handsets across all price ranges. The 2026 Samsung Galaxy A17 costs $200 and supports 25-watt charging, the same speed as the more expensive $900 Galaxy S26. The also-$900 OnePlus 15 supports 80-watt speeds. 

Wireless charging has also made gains, thanks to the wider adoption of the Qi2 standard on phones, with speeds up to 15 watts, and Qi2.2, which can go up to 25 watts. Some phones even have embedded magnets (think the iPhone and MagSafe) to properly line up your phone so they can achieve these speeds — a far cry from the early days of wireless charging, when if you didn’t position the phone just right, it wouldn’t recharge at all. While wired charging remains more efficient and faster, these newer wireless charging speeds can still provide a decent bump in power when your phone is running low.

But finding the fastest-charging phone isn’t so easy as picking the one with the highest charging rate.

Even with advances in wired and wireless charging, the time it takes to recharge your phone can vary depending on your phone’s battery. Some devices have larger batteries that last longer through the day, but also take longer to recharge. Others have split batteries, which allow the phone to recharge faster by using two smaller batteries. And some phones use silicon-carbon batteries, a newer technology that enables higher capacity and faster charging.

So which phones recharge the fastest? We tested 33 phones over the past year, from companies like Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola. We also tested phones available only internationally to compare with what’s in the US, and in many cases, these devices charge even faster. But at the end of the day, Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro earned CNET Lab Awards for fastest charging phones.

Overall fastest charging phone

Before we get to the award winners, we ranked all the phones tested to determine which was the fastest-charging overall. To do this, we averaged each phone’s wired and wireless charging test results into a single score. We found that Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro is the fastest overall charging phone we have tested in the past year.

For the 33 phones benchmarked, we ran each through two tests. The first was a 30-minute wired charging test using the charging cable that came with the phone and a wall charger that matched or exceeded the phone’s maximum supported charging speed. Each phone started the test with a 10% or less charge, and we noted the ending percentage after 30 minutes.

We ran all the phones that support wireless charging through a similar 30-minute test. For each, we used a Qi (7.5 watts), Qi2 (15 watts) or Qi2.2 (25 watts) charger that matched or exceeded each phone’s top supported wireless charging speed. Phones started with a 10% or less charge, and we captured the ending percentage after 30 minutes.

For phones that support fast proprietary wireless charging speeds, such as Honor’s Magic 8 Pro, which can charge at 80 watts, we scored those separately. Most of these phones are sold outside the US, but we wanted to test as many as we could. We included only phones that we could test on a manufacturer’s actual proprietary wireless charger.

We determined an overall charging score by averaging our wired and wireless charging test results for each phone. While the iPhone 17 Pro doesn’t have the wildly fast wireless charging speeds of some Chinese phones sold outside the US, it benefits from having a smaller 4,252-mAh battery than other phones in its price range (which typically have a capacity of 5,000 mAh or more) — so with less capacity, it doesn’t take as long to charge. And as we learned in our battery life testing, a battery’s capacity is just one of several factors (along with processor and software efficiency) that affect how long it lasts. 

The 17 Pro supports both a fast 40-watt wired charging speed and 25-watt Qi2.2 wireless charging. We should note that we used the US eSIM-only variant of the iPhone 17 Pro, which has a slightly larger battery compared to models with a SIM card tray sold in some international markets (3,988 mAh). Apple says that eSIM-only versions get an extra two hours of video playback because of the slightly larger battery (which takes up the space where a SIM card tray would go).

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra was the fastest-charging Android phone tested and second overall. Even though this phone has a larger 5,000-mAh battery compared with the iPhone 17 Pro, it supports 60-watt wired charging speeds and 25-watt Qi2.2 charging, which provides fast recharge speeds without requiring a proprietary charger.

Fastest wired charging phone

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra earned a CNET Labs Award for fastest wired charging. In 30 minutes, it added 76%. Rounding out the top wired charging results are the iPhone 17 Pro with 74%, Motorola’s Moto G Stylus (2025) with 74%, the OnePlus 15 with 72% and at 69% are the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. These phones are a mix of midrange to premium choices, but all support 40-watt wired charging speeds or higher.

Faster wired charging speeds are increasingly common, as most phones use the USB-PD power delivery standard, which is supported by many widely available power adapters. In certain cases, faster speeds are still being achieved through proprietary charging systems, and in those phones, companies usually still include their power adapter in the box.

Most phones with 80-watt charging speeds or higher use silicon-carbon batteries, which offer higher capacity and faster charging without increasing battery size. Silicon-carbon is a new type of lithium-ion battery in which the anode (the negative end) is made of silicon rather than graphite. (The carbon is there to stabilize the silicon.) Phones like the OnePlus 15 recharged 72% of its big 7,300-mAh silicon-carbon battery in 30 minutes using its own proprietary 80-watt charger that comes with the phone (though it can recharge faster with a 100-watt charger OnePlus sells on its website).

Motorola’s upcoming Razr Fold has a silicon-carbon battery, as does the company’s entire line of new Razr flip phones, but for now, OnePlus, RedMagic and Poco are the only phone makers directly selling silicon-carbon battery-powered phones in the US. Companies commonly seen in the US, like Apple, Samsung and Google, haven’t yet used this type of battery.

Fastest wireless charging phone

Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro earned a CNET Labs Award for fastest wireless charging, adding 55% in our 30-minute wireless charging test. The 17 Pro likely benefits from Qi2.2 wireless charging and magnets (which Apple debuted in 2020 as MagSafe) to keep a wireless charger in the optimal charging position. For this category, we tested only phones that support Qi, Qi2 or Qi2.2. For phones with proprietary wireless charging, we have them in a separate section below. 

Other phones that scored in our top five for wireless charging are the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 53%, the iPhone 17 with 49%, the iPhone Air with 47% and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra with 39%. Most of these phones support Qi2.2 wireless charging at 25 watts (the iPhone Air supports 20 watts), and in this test, it was likely battery size that separated the 17 Pro from the 17 Pro Max — since both have the same processor and software advantages. Among this top five, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the only one that doesn’t have built-in magnets, but Samsung does sell first-party magnetic cases to help ensure proper alignment with a wireless charger.

There are a lot of variables with wireless charging to consider. Typically, getting the fastest wireless charging speeds requires both a charger that supports your phone’s fastest speed and an even faster power adapter to plug it into. For instance, Apple’s MagSafe support page says that to get the fastest 25-watt wireless charging speed for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17, you’ll need a 30-watt or greater power adapter along with Apple’s MagSafe charger. I should note that Apple likely says this because it sells a 30-watt wall plug, instead of carrying multiple chargers to support various speeds like 7.5 watts, 15 watts and 25 watts. And while we were able to get the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s fastest speeds, our sister site PCMag reports that certain combinations of phone cases and charging accessories might cause the phone to drop to 15 watts.

Brand with the fastest charging phones

We analyzed our testing data to find which phone brand has the most consistent fast charging. And by far, it’s Apple. 

With an overall scoring average of 54.6% across the four iPhone 17 devices and the iPhone Air. Compared with Android, which needs to support a variety of phone shapes, sizes, batteries and processors, Apple’s lineup benefits from its smaller batteries thanks to its highly efficient processor and software. Most 2025 models support 40-watt wired charging and up to 25-watt wireless charging. Even though recharging speed is different from overall battery life, it’s also worth noting that Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max had the best battery life in our testing, with the iPhone 17 and the OnePlus 15 tied for second.

Samsung, Google and Motorola also came very close to each other. Samsung’s 38.5% average was calculated across nine phones, with the Galaxy S26 Ultra being the fastest with a 58% score and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 having the lowest score at 29%.

Motorola and Google had four and five phones, respectively, included in this sample. For Motorola, the Moto G Stylus 2025 scored the highest — benefiting from the phone’s 68-watt wired charging speed and 15-watt wireless charging speed. The Moto G Stylus is also one of the cheapest phones in our study, priced at $400. Google’s top performer was the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which was boosted by being the only Pixel 10 device to support 25-watt Qi2.2 wireless charging.

What about fast-charging Chinese phones?

While wireless charging has largely standardized on Qi, Qi2 and Qi2.2, several phones tout even faster wireless charging speeds. The Honor Magic 8 Pro, which isn’t available in the US, uses its own standard for an 80-watt wireless charging speed and recharged by 61% in our test — easily one of the fastest we’ve seen. 

The issue is whether you can even find an adapter that supports them. For phones like the OnePlus 15, its faster wireless charging speed relies on the proprietary AirVooc system. This means you have to buy a specific wireless charger from OnePlus to take advantage of its 50-watt wireless charging speed. 

There were also a number of cases in which a phone company would report a speed capability, but it’s nearly impossible to find a charger that would let us test this. For instance, the RedMagic 11 Pro supports 80-watt wireless charging speeds. But there are no 80-watt wireless chargers readily available to use it with.

Motorola’s 2025 Razr Ultra supports 30-watt wireless charging, but we couldn’t test it because the company sold a compatible charger only during a brief post-launch window. In these cases, we tested with the charger that is available, but otherwise left them out of contention since it’s unrealistic that anyone would benefit from these speeds.

How to get the fastest recharge speeds on your phone

If you want to get the fastest possible charging speed that your phone offers, you’ll need to make sure you have the right power adapter. If your phone supports 68-watt fast charging but you’re using an older charging brick, your phone will charge only as fast as that adapter allows.

Typically, older charging bricks that use the larger USB-A port don’t reach the highest charging speeds, but that can vary. For instance, OnePlus often uses power bricks that support faster charging, but use the older port as part of its proprietary charging standard. 

In most cases, when buying a new phone, you’ll want to find a power adapter that uses a USB-C cable and supports at least the maximum speed your phone offers. Many of these power adapters are available for under $30, including models that support faster 68-watt charging and can also charge your laptop.

If you want the fastest wireless charging speed, I’d recommend checking whether your phone supports Qi2 or Qi2.2, and if so, using a charger with those standards. An easy way to tell if your phone does is whether it has magnets on the back of it or supports a case with magnets. Not all Qi2/Qi2.2-supported phones have magnets, but the benefit for those that do is that, when used with a magnetic wireless charger, you can attach the phone and be confident it’s in exactly the right place for the best charging speeds. Otherwise, there’s some variability. If your phone is just a little bit off the optimal position on a wireless charger, its charging speed could be dramatically slower — or it may not charge at all.