OnePlus’ new ‘Glacier’ battery tech promises 36 minute charging – here’s how it works

OnePlus keeps dropping interesting news this week. Earlier today the Chinese company announced the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite, a budget-friendly but well-equipped phone debuting later this summer. 

Not to leave out high-end consumers, OnePlus has also announced the Ace 3 Pro, a high-end phone series that is generally only available in China. However, what makes the upcoming phone interesting is its new “glacier battery”.

In general, phone batteries haven’t changed much in the last few years. Sure, they’ve gotten bigger with most flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Google Pixel 8 Pro featuring 5,000 mAh batteries, with future editions expected to get even larger ones.

OnePlus is promising to change that, as spotted on Weibo by Android Authority, with the new Glacier Battery which is supposed to cram a 6,100 mAh battery cell into the space that a 5,000 mAh cell takes up.  

Most batteries are made up of a lithium-ion construction, OnePlus built this new Glacier on its “silicon carbon anode” technology. Co-developed by OnePlus and a Chinese battery maker, CATL, the battery supposedly provides two days of use on a single charge.

OnePlus has stated that the battery features 100W fast charging and can go from 1% to 100% in just over 36 minutes. The company claims the battery will retain over 80% of its original capacity after four years of use.

For reference, the battery can allegedly operate for up to two-hours of gaming or three and half hours of watching videos like TikTok.

According to the Weibo posts, the “high-capacity bionic silicon carbon material” in the Glacier Battery enables OnePlus to develop smaller batteries than the graphite batteries that make up the standard 5,000 mAh batteries.

The phone manufacturer is no stranger to large capacity batteries in its phones. OnePlus phones like the OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus 12R have 5,400 mAh and 5,500 mAh batteries. The just announced Nord CE4 Lite has a 5,110 mAh at least in Europe and possibly the US because of regulations on battery density. Elsewhere that device is getting a 5,500 mAh battery.

With next year’s chipsets like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3 Gen 4 expected to be battery eating monsters, it’ll be something if OnePlus’ new battery makes its way out of China and into other OnePlus phones or even competitor’s devices.

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