Realme has revealed its first magnetic charger, promising the same convenience as Apple’s MagSafe but with much more power for its Android devices. Realme MagDart may not be the first charging pad designed to cling to the back of a smartphone, but with up to 50W on tap it could be just as fast as a wired connection would be.
Realme – sibling brand to OnePlus and Oppo – showed the accessory off alongside a new concept Android phone, the Realme Flash. MagDart attaches to the back of that device, and promises to charge its 4,500 mAh battery from flat to full in 54 minutes.
It’s based on Realme’s SuperDart fast-charging technology, which is capable of up to 65W for wired connections. Like that – and, indeed, the same charging tech which is repackaged as OnePlus Warp Charge 65, and Oppo SuperVOOC – it does demand active cooling. Unsurprisingly, that has an impact on size.
The block, as we saw in leaks recently, is a fair degree chunkier than a MagSafe puck. Then again, Apple’s magnetic charging pad only offers 15W for an iPhone 12. Realme says that it will also have a more direct counterpart for that, a MagDart charger puck which is actually thinner than Apple’s pad at just 3.9 mm thick. It maxes out at 15W, which means a 100-percent charge takes around 90 minutes instead.
As Apple has done, Realme is positioning the magnetic technology as for more than just chargers. Although there’s also a Realme MagDart Powerbank, similar to Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack, for charging a compatible Realme phone away from an outlet, there’ll also be other accessories.
A MagDart Wallet, for instance, will have space for credit cards but also include a pop-out stand to prop the phone up. That could be handy for video calls. A MagDart Beauty Light, meanwhile, is designed to add some extra illumination for those calls along with selfies. It relies on reverse wireless charging for its power, too, using the MagDart system but drawing energy from the phone instead of the other way around.
With the Realme Flash just a concept right now, the company has also revealed a MagDart-compatible case for the Realme GT phone. That would add support for the broader MagDart ecosystem.
Realme hasn’t said when devices with native support for MagDart might reach the market, though it seems like an inevitability that it will be sooner rather than later. With the trio of companies working more closely now, it also seems likely that we’ll see support for the high-speed magnetic wireless charging across OnePlus and Oppo phones eventually too.
