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The primary time I used the Honor Magic V3 final 12 months, I could not consider my eyes. The cellphone was so silly skinny I used to be certain it would not final a day on a single cost, a lot much less be capable of maintain top-end efficiency whereas enjoying video games. To my astonishment, it handed each of these exams with flying colours, and this 12 months’s Magic V5 is even thinner.
In case you can consider it, regardless of being even thinner than the earlier 12 months’s cellphone, the Magic V5’s battery is 13% bigger. It seemingly is senseless, particularly on condition that the battery is 32% bigger than the equally skinny Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. Whereas it would sound like voodoo magic, the key comes from a spot you won’t have anticipated: electrical vehicles.
Honor has been utilizing these silicon-carbon batteries for a couple of years now, and annually they enhance. This 12 months, we received a good greater bump than normal, and it is enabling telephones to get thinner with out compromising on necessary issues like battery life and charging velocity.
From vehicles to smartphones
Group14 Applied sciences is the corporate behind the large push for extra silicon in our batteries, and a number of this push started with the necessity for extra power in electrical vehicles. Automobiles, in spite of everything, require lots extra energy to operate than your common smartphone, so it was necessary to determine get a bigger capability battery that additionally expenses shortly into the identical dimension kind issue.
That is finished by taking the normal lithium battery materials, graphite, and mixing it with silicon within the anode a part of the battery. Electrical automotive anodes can have as much as 30% silicon blended with graphite, whereas the Honor Magic V5 tops out at 15%, which remains to be essentially the most we have seen in any smartphone thus far.
Since silicon shops much more power in the identical area as graphite, producers can create higher-capacity batteries that slot in the identical area. In an ultra-thin cellphone just like the Honor Magic V5, Galaxy Z Fold 7, Galaxy S25 Edge, and even the iPhone Air, a bigger silicon-carbon battery could make your skinny cellphone really feel like magic. It is simply too dangerous Samsung, Google, and Apple aren’t utilizing them in any respect.
The charging check
Earlier this summer time, we discovered about how laws might be preserving battery sizes down. The gist is that delivery laws cap a battery at 20Wh in capability, which equates to roughly 5400mAh within the smartphone world. This restriction is partly why Chinese language fashions sometimes have bigger batteries than the worldwide mannequin of the identical cellphone.
The Honor Magic V5 packs a 5,820mAh battery, whereas the Galaxy Z Fold 7 makes use of only a 4,400mAh battery. Whereas this may sound like an issue for Honor initially, the trick is that this regulation is per cell, that means corporations have to make use of dual-cell batteries. The excellent news is that corporations like OnePlus and Honor have been doing this for years.
Mannequin | Battery dimension | Weight | Time to 100% | Common quantity per minute | Peak temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 | 4400mAh | 215g | 1 hour 25 minutes | 51.76mAh | 33C ⭐ |
Honor Magic V5 | 5820mAh ⭐ | 217g | 50 minutes ⭐ | 116.4mAh ⭐ | 36C |
Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely | 5000mAh | 218g | 1 hour | 83.33mAh | 33C ⭐ |
Google Pixel 10 Professional XL | 5200mAh | 232g | 1 hour 35 minutes | 54.75mAh | 40C |
OnePlus 13 | 6000mAh ⭐ | 210g ⭐ | 35 minutes ⭐ | 171.42mAh ⭐ | 32C ⭐ |
Utilizing a dual-cell battery additionally ensures quicker charging charges since you may cost two cells in tandem. Samsung, Google, and Apple do not do that, and it is one of many causes they cost so slowly.
Telephones with dual-cell batteries within the desk above — that is the OnePlus 13 and Honor Magic V5 — cost considerably quicker regardless of having bigger batteries. Swapping out graphite for silicon additionally reduces weight, making this a win-win state of affairs for design.
Longevity and value
It is all the time peculiar when three of the world’s largest smartphone producers do not observe a pattern. In a couple of approach, it jogs my memory of how each firm however Samsung, Google, and Apple have made their telephones extra pleasant for PWM-sensitive individuals (till the iPhone 17 got here alongside, that’s).
Some individuals cite price as a foremost cause to not use silicon-carbon batteries, however that does not appear to make a lot sense given the price of the premium telephones from these manufacturers. Packing in a dual-cell battery prices slightly bit more cash per cellphone, however it will make sense to make use of these batteries on ultrathin telephones just like the iPhone Air, Galaxy S25 Edge, and Galaxy Z Fold 7.
In Samsung’s case, the Galaxy Notice 7 remains to be haunting the corporate, making it hyper delicate about any main modifications in battery or charging tech. The corporate informed T3 that they are growing a silicon-carbon battery that is “dependable,” as if present SC battery tech someway is not.
The Verge wrote about how silicon degrades quicker than graphite, a legit concern contemplating corporations like Google are actively throttling cellphone batteries as quickly as 200 charging cycles. However Group14 says its silicon-carbon batteries will exceed the lifetime charging cycles of current merchandise by a big quantity.
We’ll want a bit extra time to see if that seems to be true, as the primary main cellphone with a silicon-carbon battery was 2023’s Honor Magic 5 Professional. However even in the event you purchased that cellphone on day one and charged it each single day since then, you continue to would not have hit 1,000 charging cycles, which is when Google caps the Pixel 10’s battery at 80% capability.
Utilizing the Honor Magic V5 once more as the ultimate instance, it is battery is made up of 15% silicon-carbon, making the battery 32% bigger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s. Even at an 80% capability discount after 2.5 years, it will nonetheless have a bigger capability than a brand-new (and, due to this fact, unused) Galaxy Z Fold 7.
That is sufficient of an argument alone to me and a cause why silicon-carbon is not simply the way forward for smartphone tech; it is the explanation it’s best to select manufacturers not named Samsung or Google.
The Honor Magic V5 is simply as skinny because the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, but packs in a 32% bigger battery, quicker charging, and extra superior battery tech that’ll last more.
