Wireless charging was all the rage when it was introduced all those years ago. We all rushed to purchase any Qi charger we could get our hands on. Unfortunately so many of them were of poor quality so they got extremely hot, made our phones extremely hot and damn near burned down our homes. Even then the charging speeds were a woeful 5W so there were very few reasons to actually use them.
Fast forward a few years and not only has the Qi charging standard improved to faster, safer charging speeds but manufacturers have implemented their own wireless charging solutions. These new charging solutions have progressed enough so that they now approach and even surpass wired charging speeds of some manufacturers.
OPPO is one company that has implemented their own wireless charging solution which has resulted in speeds of 65W for some phones — AirVOOC. Currently the only commercially-available solution is a 45W AirVOOC charger with the only phone close to capable of that the Ace 2 at 40W. Here in Australia the new Find X3 Pro supports fast wireless charging at 30W, assuming you use their AirVOOC wireless charger. Unfortunately the AirVOOC wireless charger is not cheap aty $99. We got our hands on an AirVOOC wireless charger to check out what it’s all about.
What’s in the box?
Inside the box you get the wireless charging stand, a USB cable and that’s it. You will need to use a SuperVOOC 2.0 65W AC adapter to get it working (or an equivalent USB-C charger). Of course, you will have one on hand considering your phone that supports the 30W AirVOOC will also come with a 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 charging brick. Unfortunately, it also means that you cannot have the wireless charger operational at your work desk while also having the 65W charging capabilities at home.
That is unless you fork out for another AC charging brick from the OPPO store (don’t be sucked into cheap versions from some online retailers — they, as a rule, don’t work). I also tested the charger with my Dell 45W laptop charger and while it powered the charger to be able to wirelessly charge phones it wasn’t enough to get the AirVOOC speeds. The 65W laptop charger though was — you can tell the difference by the icons — see below.
The stand itself has a light on the front and a fan inside the base of it. The fan is obviously there to keep the stand cool and not the phone as the fan is enclosed within the base and projects downwards. The light obviously lights up blue to indicate when a phone is charging on it and lights red when a phone is on there that is not supported by the wireless charging.
The lack of an AC charging adapter in the box is obviously a cheape solution for OPPO and considering some manufacturers don’t even include a charging brick with their $1500 smartphone it’s acceptable — but still annoying. You can grab an official SuperVOOC 2.0 adapter though from the OPPO online store.
Does it work and how well?
Importantly, place the phone on the charger, in landscape or portrait mode, and it will charge at its maximum speed. This is handy because it means that no matter what you are doing with the phone you can continue to use it while it is charging — eg. watching a movie, an NBA game etc.
Wireless charging at speeds that exceed many manufacturers’ wired charging speeds? What more could you want? That is it in a nutshell. The charger is capable of charging at 45W so next year’s phone will most likely be fully supported too but even at 30W this year it’s extremely handy to have.
Stick your OPPO Find X3 Pro (or your OnePlus 8 Pro or 9 Pro) on the charger for just 20 minutes and the battery will go from 5% to just on 50%. 30 minutes will give you 70% and full charge in just 50 minutes. 50% is enough to last a day for many/most people so the speeds of AirVOOC make using the charger easy and extremely convenient.
As for the phone getting hot like it used to with wireless chargers — no more. OPPO uses software within their phones to limit the heat created by the charging solutions they apply and have well designed internals to dissipate said heat fast as well. The phone does not get hot even while charging for the entire hour. OPPO says that you can charge the phone overnight without any damage to your phone (or your house).
The AirVOOC charger will work with any phone that supports Qi charging but you will not get full 30W speeds out of it unless that phone supports the AirVOOC charging protocol. At this stage I have used it on various phones but only gotten speeds over 10W on the OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus 9 Pro and the Find X3 Pro.
Should you buy it?
If you have forked out the price north of $1500 for the OPPO Find X3 Pro then it is likely you will be keeping said phone for at least a couple of years. If this is the case for you then I highly recommend buying the OPPO AirVOOC Wireless charger to charge your phone quickly and easily without having to plug it in — pick up a spare 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 AC adapter for $35 while you are there — it’s currently on sale.
You can get the OPPO 45W AirVOOC wireless charger from the OPPO online store for $99 and it makes a great addition to an already great phone, the OPPO Find X3 Pro.