How to fast-charge your smartphone when you're in a hurry

You're leaving your home or office in 20 minutes and your smartphone's battery is almost dead. You want to get the maximum charge into it in the least amount of time possible. What do you do?

Picture this: You're leaving your home or office in 20 minutes and your smartphone's battery is almost dead. ou want to get the maximum charge into it in the least amount of time possible.

What do you do?

Here's the best method I've found, and it works well for iPhone and Android smartphones, as well as tablets such as the iPad.

#1: Use a good, powerful charger

One of the fastest chargers I own is an iPad charger, and I use this to charge up pretty much all my devices as it cuts down the amount of time my devices are hooked up to a cord.

And the difference is quite staggering. For example, my iPhone 6S Plus takes over three hours to charge up from flat to full using the supplied iPhone charger, but that time is slashed to just over two hours using an iPad charger.

#2: Put the device into airplane mode

By doing this, the device is not burning through the battery as you're trying to charge it up. On average, I find that devices charge about twice as fast when they are in airplane mode as they do when in normal mode.

#3: Remove any cases

Especially thick rubber cases, because batteries charge slower the warmer they get. It's also a good idea to put the device in a cool spot while it's charging.

#4: Leave the device alone while it's charging!

Resist the temptation to check how it's charging every few minutes, because each time you activate the display you're increasing power consumption!

Bonus tip: Carry a small portable battery pack

A small pack such as the Anker PowerCore mini carries enough charge to fully charge an iPhone 6S in about 2 hours, and yet is small enough to slip into a pocket (remember that you'll need a cable too!).

Source: zdnet