#3 Battery & charging:
Hello and welcome back, to Part 3 of my OnePlus 8T Lab Review. Today’s topic: Battery and charging!
But before we start, I have a small announcement to make. For all of you that read my first part earlier, might remember Ben. Well, I’ve finally been able to ask him on Instagram, and his forum username is @Infinite_Power. Thank you again for this cute little gift!
Alright, now on to what you’re here for.
I'll start with what most of you are wondering about probably: Battery life. Battery life has been quite good for me so far. Nothing exceptional but slightly better than on my 7 Pro. Even though I had AOD enabled since I got the device, I am getting around 4-5 hours screen-on-time, sometimes even close to 6. I haven’t been able to fully test how much difference it makes when AOD is disabled, but below I have attached a screenshot of my current cycle with AOD disabled and it's going great so far! You can also see some of the battery features like optimized charging (even though I would say you will never need it, because of how fast this phone charges).
Okay, it's time to talk about the more difficult, but also more interesting part: Charging.
The OnePlus 8T, doesn’t have wireless charging, but I couldn’t care less about that, to be honest. I’ve used it a few times on my work phone but I fail to see the benefits of it. You have to put your phone in that exact spot on the table, the moment you take it, it stops charging and starts again once you lay it down.. Just imagine you unplug your phone every time you get your hands on it, and plug it back in after. Yuck. Additionally, the phone gets warm, which hurts the battery. I see wireless charging as an opportunity for quite some type of things, like laptops, that once you put them on a table, are more or less stationary. But a device that is mobile? Doesn’t really make sense to me as of now. We’ll see what the future brings I’d say.
For wired charging, OnePlus has upped their fast charging game from the previous 30W (what was quite fast already) to insane 65W! They claim the phone will charge from 0% up to 100% in only 39 minutes (in perfect conditions). In my tests, charging from below 10% up to 100% took about 40-42 minutes, so I agree with that.
Experiencing Warp Charge 65 is something else, I tell you. It’s so crazy fast, I’m still blown away! At some times you see it charging like 5% in only one minute! And even though it is charging this fast, the phone itself stays really
!
My 7 Pro got a little bit warmer while charging, even though it was much slower.
They also have this cute little animation when you start charging with Warp Charge 65. (I doubt it’s the correct numbers, but nevertheless it’s a nice touch)
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/60143888a444d.gif)
So one might wonder, how does this work now? How do they double the charging rate, without the phone getting much warmer?
The answer is kinda simple. OnePlus calls it twin-battery charging technology. The name already reveals the magic trick: Twin Batteries. Instead of one large battery, as in regular smartphones, the OnePlus 8T has 2 batteries that charge at about 30W simultaneously. With this, you get double the charging speed, with about the same amount of heat.
That heat is further reduced due to the 8T’s improved internal cooling, but I’ll talk more about that tomorrow. 
OnePlus also stated that they’ve done a lot of testing on the 8T’s battery and says the battery will still have more than 80% of its initial capacity, after 800 complete charging cycles!
Finally, let’s have a talk about the charger and cable. And I’ve got to say, I absolutely love them. Not only for bringing me Warp Charge 65, but also for making it possible that I only have to take one charger with me from now on. I can finally charge my laptop and my Nintendo Switch, with my phone's charger - that’s just awesome!
Before, I still had to take another charger with me because the Warp Charge 30 charger wasn’t able to charge the other 2 devices, and with the other charger my phone wouldn’t charge at its full speed. 
I’ve also found out some things about the Cable I need to share with you!
Some short introduction first, the phone will either say ‘Warp Charge 65’, when charging at Warp 65 speed, or ‘Charging rapidly’ when connected to a warp charge 30, OnePlus fast charge or any Power Delivery Adapter.
That’s why I was pretty confused when I tried my 2m Power Delivery Cable on the new power brick, and the phone showed Warp Charge 65. I’ve also tried an iPad Pro USB-C cable and the same happened. After further testing, and time measures, it took about 44 minutes to get from 5% up to 100% - what’s about the same as with the original OnePlus cable.
So in conclusion, I assume if you have a cable that can transfer high Power Delivery rates, it should also be able to charge with Warp Charge 65 speed. Which means, I can use my 2m cable and don’t have to buy one from OnePlus! Woohoo!
But, for other OnePlus charging technologies (like Warp Charge 30) to work, you need to use the OnePlus Cable!
Alright, that might be even more confusing now, so I’ll try to visualize a little bit:
(OP = OnePlus, WC = Warp Charge, PD = Power Delivery)
- WC65 charger + OP cable = WC65 on OP8T, WC30(T) on OP devices that support it, OP fast charging on OP3-OP6T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates up to 45W
- WC65 charger + any cable that supports high PD rates = WC65 on OP8T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates up to 45W
- Power Delivery Charger + any supported cable = PD with up to 27W on OP8T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates
Please note that the 2nd point is just an assumption based on my short testings, it might happen that this won’t work with your cable. But if you have a cable already, you might better try using it instead of buying one from OnePlus. 
Additionally, here are some photos of the charger, so you can see it’s supported output rates and also a size comparison with the Warp Charge 30 charging brick. Oh, and the new charger weighs about 50% more, even though they're almost the same size.
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/60143888f2dd4.jpg)
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/601438892af52.jpg)
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/6014388952d7b.jpg)
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/6014388974d53.jpg)
![[IMG]](https://forums-images.oneplus.net/data/webimg/2021/01-29/601438899a978.jpg)
To be honest, I imagined this part to be quite a bit shorter, but once I started writing down all my thoughts, I haven't been able to stop the flow.
I hope you still enjoyed this part and that I've been able to give you some more insights into charging with the OnePlus 8T. If you have any questions after this confusing section, please ask and I'll try my best to clear it up. 
And again, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy! 
Last edited: Oct 16, 2020