Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra results from the 3DMark Solar Bay Stress Test
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
Samsung may be giving its future phones a wireless charging upgrade that will help charge their phones a lot faster, and it comes in the form of a new chip.
In a blog post that was published during last week, the company said the new wireless charging chip, called the S2MIW06, is a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) that will help improve wireless charging by giving Samsung phones access to up to 50W of power. The S2MIW06 chip will support both the Qi and Qi 2.2 wireless charging standards, the latter of which is set to debut later this year.
The Qi standard includes the Baseline Power Profile, the Extended Power Profile, and the Magnetic Power Profile — the last two of which bring respective wireless charging speeds of 15W and 25W.
Please enable Javascript to view this content
Most smartphones on the market today currently don’t draw 50W when charging — that’s the power level of some laptops — so the extra power should help phones charge faster. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S24 receives wireless charging speeds of up to 15W and reverse wireless charging speeds of 4.5W. The iPhone 16 is not immune to slow charging speeds either, as it gets 25W of wireless charging from a MagSafe charger.
Meanwhile, only a few Android-run smartphone brands have adopted 50W wireless charging speeds for their products, including OnePlus. The OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus 13 have access to 50W of wireless charging, especially if you use the 50W AirVOOC wireless charger on the latest model, which takes 15 minutes to give it a 50% charge but 70 minutes to fill up the battery.
Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy S25 won’t have the luxury of wireless charging speeds that fast, as it’s capped at 25W. However, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may get 45W of wireless charging, which is the closest it’ll get to 50W.
Cristina Alexander is a gaming and mobile writer at Digital Trends. She blends fair coverage of games industry topics that…
The base model Galaxy S25 will get a RAM upgrade we’ve waited years for
Back in November, we heard rumors that the Samsung Galaxy S25 might come with an upgraded amount of RAM compared to the base Galaxy S24. The Galaxy S24 Plus and S24 Ultra both start with 12GB of RAM minimum, but until now, the majority of base-model Samsung handsets only had 8GB.
Abhishek Yadav, a known leaker, shared a post on X that said the base storage variant of the Galaxy S25 would come with 12GB of RAM. This also implies that the base storage is likely to be 256GB too. As apps, operating systems, and integrated AI become more powerful, so do their technical requirements. A bump to the base amount of RAM and storage will yield improved performance (hopefully) without a significant cost increase.
Read more
Samsung’s phone repair service is getting a big upgrade in January
If you have a Samsung Galaxy device, then now would be a good time to consider getting Samsung Care+. Why? Because screen repairs will be free under Care+ for covered Galaxy devices beginning in January 2025, as spotted by 9to5Google. Of course, there’s a small catch.
But what is Samsung Care+? It’s basically just Apple Care, but for Samsung devices. So this extended coverage will apply to Samsung Galaxy phones (i.e. S24, S24 Plus, S24 Ultra, etc.), tablets (i.e. Tab S10 Ultra), and even wearables, like smartwatches (Galaxy Watch Ultra). For broken displays, though, you’d still pay a little bit of money even with Samsung Care+, though at a significant discount. Currently, the price for a cracked screen repair starts at $29.
Read more
MagSafe for Samsung? The Galaxy S25 may introduce new magnetic accessories
Although Samsung has tons of features that give it an edge against the iPhone, its lineup of phones has never sported MagSafe without the use of a third-party case. A new leak suggests that might be about to change thanks to multiple first-party accessories, including a so-called ‘Magnet Case.’
According to well-known tipster Max Jambor, the Samsung Galaxy S25 will be releasing alongside a line of magnetic and non-magnetic accessories, including the Standing Grip Case, Kindsuit Case, Ultra Clear Case, Silicone Case, Rugged Case, and the Magnet Case. He also said Samsung will have a magnetic wallet, although we haven’t yet learned what it will be called.
Read more
