HTC Rapid Charger 2.0 gives One smartphones a quick boost

Time and time again, we've looked to the battery as the bottleneck for smartphone performance and longevity. No longer encumbered by CPU or memory, at least for some models, it is the battery's usually short life that has now become the primary concern for smartphone users. But in cases where you don't have a huge battery or can't swap ones in a pinch, your last resort will be an external battery or a wall charger. For the latter, HTC is bringing a new Rapid Charger 2.0 that promises to bring your phone back to life at a fraction of the time required.

Fast charging, rapid charging, turbo charging. These are all seemingly getting popular these days as a stopgap measure to address the limitations of smartphone batteries. Of course, you'll still have to reach for that wall socket, but at least this time you won't have to hog it all the time and be branded as a wall hugger. HTC's Rapid Charger 2.0 is advertised to give juice to your smartphone battery at a rate that is 40 percent faster than leading brands. What that translates to in terms of actual minutes will, of course, vary depending on your device, but 40 percent is still considerably faster than a regular "fast" charger that usually comes with some boxes these days.

That said, that rapid charging power isn't going to work on just any HTC smartphone. The only ones certified to benefit from this is the HTC One M8, as well as its Harman Kardon version, the HTC One Remix, the HTC One (E8), and the newest HTC Desire EYE. If these sound like just the most recent batch of smartphones, then you aren't far off. That's because HTC's fancy new charger makes use of Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology to make the magic happen, which is a relatively new version. Whether the charger will work on other smartphones that use the same technology still needs to be tested.

That test might have to come at a much later time. Aside from the very limited compatibility, the biggest letdown for this Rapid Charger 2.0 is that it isn't available yet at all. A placeholder for the product exists on HTC's online store, but neither price nor date have been hinted, leaving HTC's faithful still dreaming of better days with shorter charging times.

SOURCE: HTC