5 reasons your Android battery is charging slowly

You know the deal: hot date lined up for tonight, got home late from work, no chance of your battery lasting all night and only 15 minutes to charge. But your battery always seems to take so much longer to charge than everyone else's so you know that won't be enough. So what's the deal?  Why is your battery always slow to charge? Here are the main culprits and what you can do about them.

 

Your cable sucks

The first offender in any case of slow-charging should always be your USB cable. Just take a look at it: guilty as hell. Considering the awful treatment my USB cables undergo, it's no wonder that it is usually why my phone won't charge faster.

USB cables get bent, twisted, coiled, run over with chair wheels and generally abused: all of these are not very good for maintaining a solid connection and flow-through of power. Be sure to check the ends too: they can very easily get full of fluff. 

Your power source sucks

The next obvious question is where are you getting your power from? If you have a USB cable plugged into your laptop then your phone is going to charge insanely slowly and you'll deserve it. Likewise Qi wireless charging. While Qi is brilliant technology, that brilliance comes at the cost of speed.

Your best bet is to have your phone plugged direct into mains power at the wall socket. But even this can be problematic, especially if you're in an old building where the wiring might be a little sketchy. If you think this could be the problem, move to another outlet (and then call an electrician). 

Your charger sucks

To complete the trifecta, if it's not your power source or your cable, chances are that it's the actual adaptor you're using that is causing your battery to charge slowly. There's a reason every manufacturer provides a specific USB adaptor for each phone they ship.

Switching adaptors between phones can mix-match voltage, wattage, ampage and general powerage. So stick with the adaptor that came with your phone or at the very least take a look at the fine print on it and replace it with another adaptor of the same type. 

Your phone sucks

Sorry, but it's true. If you're sitting there wondering why your Galaxy S2 takes so long to charge it's because your phone sucks. Newer processors not only support fast charging, but newer phones even come with turbo charging chargers. The Galaxy S6, for example, can get your four hours' worth of usage after just ten minutes plugged in.

Other phones that support fast charging will have a lightning bolt icon on the charger itself), possibly along with turbo charging output figures. Your phone can also become a pocket lint cave too, so check your microUSB port and make sure the little flap in the port isn't bent while you're looking in there. Your battery might just be kaput too, so ask yourself how old it is. 

You suck

It's true - you're the worst thing preventing your phone charging quickly when you can't keep your hands off it. Seriously, if time is of the essence, your best bet is to leave it alone. Mindlessly scrolling through your Insta feed while watching your battery percentage go nowhere is no one's fault but your own.

So leave your phone alone when you charge it, or better yet, turn it off entirely. That's actually the absolute best way to charge a phone quickly: turn it off, plug it into a wall with the original charger and have your socks off when you come back to it. Even after as little as 15 minutes. Now put a nice outfit on - your hot date awaits.