While Chinese brands have gone hard on super-fast wireless charging, some of the non-Chinese names still don't offer it. It sounds like the Google Pixel 6 will get a medium-speed solution that beats the iPhone 12 but not all the rest of the competition.
This comes from Android Police, which has a source in a US retailer that provided information on a wireless charging stand for the new Pixel phones. This won't be the first such stand for a Pixel phone, and previous ones have let your device double as a home hub when resting in the holder.
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According to the website, this Pixel stand will charge the phone at 23W, which implies that's also the wireless powering speed of the phone, though technically it could be even higher.
For context, the newest iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices top out at 15W cable-less charging, so 23W would just nudge out the competition. It doesn't hold a candle to the 50W wireless powering OnePlus, Huawei and Xiaomi all offer in various phones though.
Analysis: the battery conundrum
In smartphones, as attested to in numerous tech briefings and conferences, a common conundrum stands: do you opt for faster charging or bigger batteries?
Some handsets offer gigantic 5,000mAh power packs with relatively slow charging, or smaller ones that offer faster charging. Usually wireless powering results in a smaller battery too.
The reason why most phones don't have huge batteries, fast charging and wireless powering, is that the tech required for each takes up space. Handsets with all three, or even two of them, will be annoyingly large (and there are devices on the market like this).
By opting for a medium wireless charging speed, instead of a super-fast one, it's likely the Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro will have fairly sizeable batteries, especially as Google doesn't often offer particularly fast wired powering either.
We'd estimate the phones will have power packs in the mid 4,000mAh range, perhaps 4,300mAh to 4,800mAh, which, joined with Android optimizations, could result in impressive battery life.
That is to say, while the wireless powering speed isn't mind-blowingly impressive, it could point to better things. We'll have to wait until the phone officially launches to find out for sure though; conflicting leaks say it'll either come on September 13 or October 28, so you might have to wait a while (or maybe not).
