Wireless charging at wired speeds

Realme MagDart is the first Android equivalent to Apple’s MagSafe, with the added promise of wired charging speeds over the air. In fact, Realme calls it the world’s fastest magnetic wireless charger. Apple’s MagSafe charges at a rather sluggish 15W, while Realme’s MagDart reaches top speeds of over 50W – although, as we’ll see later, the typical charging speeds are a bit more modest.

In addition to wireless charging, Realme uses the same magnetic connection for its MagDart Beauty Light, a 60-LED selfie light ring. There is also a MagDart Wallet, a MagDart Case for the Realme GT and MagDart Power Bank accessories. Realme has not yet listed pricing information, release dates, or regional availability for any of its MagSafe look-alikes. The company’s only smartphone with built-in technology is a concept phone called Realme Flash, which we’re using for today’s review. But there is no release information here either.

Can the Realme MagDart wireless charger keep its promise? Let’s find out.

Realme MagDart: What You Need To Know

The Realme MagDart wireless charger is thicker than your typical puck-sized hub. It’s more of a charging block as there is a built-in fan that keeps both the charger and the connected smartphone cool. The fan spins up during fast charging and you will definitely notice the noise on your desk. It’s not loud, but anything but discrete. The concept smartphone we offer offers a Quiet Charging option to slow down the fan at the expense of charging power and speed.

The Brick has a USB-C port that supports Realme’s proprietary 65W SuperDart wired charger for the fastest speeds. It also works well with USB power delivery plugs, albeit with less power and slower charging speeds. Just like the iPhone solution, Realme uses a magnetic ring to attach your phone to the charger and precisely align the wireless charging coils. It is this precision, together with a powerful coil and lots of current, that enables the MagDart to deliver up to 50 W of power through the air. As with all wireless chargers, there is some performance loss through the air, but this is still one of the fastest wireless chargers that can keep up with the fastest wired charging capacities, at least on paper.

For the traditionalists, Realme also offers a 15W MagDart wireless charger with a more familiar puck-like design. Realme claims this is the thinnest product on the market and is 26.4% thinner than Apple’s MagSafe equivalent. Realme claims it’s faster too, but for today’s review we’re more interested in the larger, more powerful 50W model.

Realme MagDart wireless charging tested

To test Realme’s claims and the capabilities of the 50W MagDart charger, I added an extra layer of data to our usual tests of turning on the concept phone’s 4,500mAh battery. In addition to battery and temperature stats, I also tracked the voltage and current being sent to the wireless charger to keep track of power usage. So let’s dive into the key metrics.

MagDart is very fast with 54 minutes to fully charge. In fact, that’s as fast as many smartphones charge over a wired connection – although it’s still significantly slower than some of the fastest charging smartphones, which can be full in almost half that time. Traditional 15W wireless charging typically takes a few hours or more to fully charge a smartphone, making it more suitable for small charges than a full charge cycle. MagDart definitely questions this old paradigm.

If you take a closer look at the charging data (see below), the wireless charger does not reach the 50% mark quite as quickly as wired standards. Its charge curve is more linear than fast wired charge, which uses the high current handling capabilities of a battery for faster charging at lower capacities. Wireless charging runs just as hot, if not hotter, than wired charging. Realme’s technology cracks the dreaded 40 ° C mark within three minutes. The peak temperatures are only 42.5 ° C, but the battery spends its entire charging time in the red area, which is really not optimal.

In addition to using a fan in the charger to combat this higher temperature, MagDart drastically lowers charging power after an initial quick boost. The 50W juice headline is only sustained for the first minute of charging before dropping to 45W for a few minutes, then 33W, 28W, and finally around 23W. Very high performance is sustained for less than five minutes, which is a little disappointing given the way MagDart is being marketed.

See also: The best phones with wireless charging

Ultimately, this power reduction is necessary to keep the temperatures under control. Interestingly, the performance slowly increases again as soon as the battery temperature begins to decrease with increasing capacity. The average power delivered over a full charge cycle is closer to 25 W – about half the amount listed. However, it’s still as fast as many of the wired charging standards you’ll find in flagship smartphones. So, Mission accomplished for Realme.

Realme MagDart: The verdict

On a full charge in under an hour, Realme’s MagDart wireless charger achieves its goal of offering wired charging speeds in a wireless package. The clever use of magnets ensures the coils are properly aligned so that the pad can deliver a whopping 50W of power over the air. This amount of power can rival some of the fastest wired chargers, although the nature of wireless charging and the high temperatures currently make it impossible to maintain this peak performance for the entire charging cycle.

Charging a battery at over 40 ° C for more than 50 minutes makes MagDart too hot for me to recommend as the primary charging method. Such high temperatures definitely have an impact on the life of the battery over several charging cycles. I would prefer something around 35 ° C or below. Still, Realme clearly made temperature an important consideration in the charger’s design, both in terms of hardware fan and software performance throttling. The temperature remains under control, but is the limiting factor in further increasing the charging performance and speed.

Ultimately, this leads to the question: Why use MagDart Wireless Charging over a USB-C cable? The MagDart charger is a bit noisy, takes up space on your desk and still needs to be connected to a nearby USB-C adapter. The fastest wired charging standards are also faster and therefore expose batteries to high temperatures faster. But MagDart isn’t just about fast charging, Realme also uses the magnets for accessories like wallets and selfie lights. As a proof of concept, MagDart is solid and could be a boon for portless devices and other accessories. But I’ll stick with wired charging for the foreseeable future.