Last year, Apple finally got around to adding fast charging support to its iPhones, namely the iPhone X and iPhone 8. However, you can charge your iPhone 7 and 7 Plus with iPad 12W charger faster than the supplied 5W charger. The company has continued that trend with the iPhone XR this year, supporting the restoration of up to 50% charge in under 30 minutes. Unfortunately, despite their premium price tag, Apple bundles an underpowered 5V, 1A (5W) adapter in the box, which charges the iPhone XR really slow.
Thus, to experience faster charging, users will have to invest in a fast charger for their iPhone XR separately. Like its Android counterparts, there are multiple options when it comes to selecting fast charging adapters. We’ll discuss a few methodologies and hardware available to enable fast charging on iPhone XR.
If you want to charge the iPhone XR at the fastest possible speed, you’ll need to use USB-C to Lightning cable, and a power brick that supports the USB-C Power Delivery (USB-C PD) attribute. Unfortunately, neither the lightning cable nor the power brick is particularly cheap, and the heavy power options (27W, 29W, 45W or the 61W) end up making a bigger dent in the wallet than most users would expect from a $1,000+ iPhone.
Cheapest Way: Buy a 12W Apple adapter ($15) and charge your iPhone XR 2X faster than the 5W adapter.
Fastest Way: Buy AUKEY USB C Charger with 18W Power Delivery 3.0 ($22). Buy USB-C to lightning cable (1M) from here.
The cheaper but slower alternatives are the 12W, 2.1A and the 18W, 2.4A fast charging power bricks which are easier to get hands-on and can accommodate a regular USB Type-A to Lightning cable. Starting at $15 if bought at Amazon, one can also opt for $7 12W models made by Anker. Both these options are guaranteed to charge the iPhone XR twice as faster as the standard brick that comes packaged inside the box.
Even though best results are obtained using the USB-C adapter that supports USB-PD, it takes roughly 10 minutes longer to get the same amount of charge up with the 12W adapter and hence it serves as an equally competent and budget-friendly option to enable the fast charging capabilities of the iPhone XR.
