Not because Pixel 10 Pro XL\u2019s battery life is poor, though it\u2019s not amazing, but simply because I keep forgetting to charge the thing, and it takes forever to get back on its feet when I need to. Yes, there are battery packs and MagSafe accessories I could use, but being tethered is hardly ideal when I want to whip out my Pixel to grab a fleeting snap of the kid\u2019s latest adventures.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s one feature that I really want for the upcoming Pixel 11 Pro XL<\/a>, it\u2019s faster, more reliable charging. Honestly, I think we deserve it by now.<\/p>\n What’s the #1 thing Google needs to fix with the Pixel 11 series?<\/p>\n 1498 votes<\/p>\n Improved performance<\/p>\n 33%<\/p>\n Longer battery life<\/p>\n 44%<\/p>\n Fast, consistent charging speeds<\/p>\n 6%<\/p>\n Better new software features<\/p>\n 6%<\/p>\n Upgraded base storage<\/p>\n 8%<\/p>\n Other (let us know in the comments)<\/p>\n 3%<\/p>\n Lagging the competition in more ways than one<\/p>\n Don\u2019t take my word for it; our testing data bears out my complaint as well. Looking at the chart below, it\u2019s hard not to be disheartened by Google\u2019s best flagship to date. It takes roughly twice as long to fill up as the OnePlus 15<\/a>, yet it has a smaller 5,200mAh Li-Ion cell compared to the OnePlus\u2019 comparatively gargantuan 7,300mAh Si\/C Li-Ion battery<\/a>.<\/p>\n The disparity is just as bad for short top-ups; 20 minutes on the plug gets the OnePlus 15 to 64% charge, while my Pixel languishes on 45%. Not only do rival flagships offer longer battery life, but they also spend less time on the plug to deliver it.<\/p>\n Pixel\u2019s charging deficiency has been made all the more galling by Samsung\u2019s adoption of 60W charging in the new Galaxy S26 Ultra<\/a>. That added power means Samsung\u2019s Ultra hits full charge in just 42 minutes \u2014 the same as the fastest Chinese flagships on the market. Granted, it has a smaller 5,000mAh battery than these 7,000mAh-plus rivals, but it\u2019ll be full before the Pixel 10 Pro XL reaches 80%, and it\u2019s miles ahead on shorter top-ups as well.<\/p>\n In fact, even Samsung\u2019s Plus models have 45W charging that marginally outclasses Google\u2019s 37W peak. Google\u2019s regular and Pro models are stuck with an even less powerful and slower 27W capability. The Pixel 10 Pro XL now only has the latest iPhone 17 series for company at the sluggish end of the smartphone charging rankings, but even Apple\u2019s latest USB PD AVS backed phones<\/a> are faster out of the gate.<\/p>\n Rivals offer longer battery life and spend less time on the plug to deliver it.<\/p>\n As the chart below shows, Google\u2019s charging times for its most powerful flagships have remained virtually unchanged for the past three generations. Yes, the Pixel 8 Pro has a 5,050mAh battery versus the 10 Pro XL\u2019s 5,200Ah cell, but Google\u2019s charging power has also jumped from 27W to 37W, yet there\u2019s been no real improvement in time on the plug for that increase.<\/p>\n In that time, Samsung had reduced its charging time by a very meaningful 20 minutes between the S24 and S26 Ultras. Meanwhile, Chinese brands like OnePlus and Xiaomi have seen their total charging times increase by around 10 minutes, but still charge much faster than the Pixel and offer around 40% more battery capacity to boot.<\/p>\n Samsung’s adoption of 60W charging ups the ante for Google’s Pixel.<\/p>\n And this is despite the added complexity of Google\u2019s very specific and still rather niche 20V USB PD PPS charging requirement for its XL smartphones, which has complicated buying the right charger and broken fast-charging interoperability with older plugs. Either your plug supports 20V PPS<\/a>, or you\u2019re capped at the old 27W (9V\/3A) power levels from the Pixel 8 Pro, with a hit to charge times to boot. Samsung\u2019s Galaxy S26 Ultra requires 20V\/3A to reach 60W, but it also supports 16V and 9V fallbacks to still provide reasonably high power with a wider range of plugs.<\/p>\n Any way you slice it, Pixel charging remains one of the phone\u2019s technological pain points, and that\u2019s before we get into the brand\u2019s well-documented battery heating issues.<\/p>\n How can Google address Pixel charging?<\/p>\n Robert Triggs \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there\u2019s no easy solution to my Pixel charging woes. On the one hand, a good portion of fans are clamoring for larger batteries to match the impressive endurance of the best phones China\u2019s brand has to offer. Without an increase in charging power, this would only exacerbate the Pixel 11\u2019s sluggish time-to-full metrics, so the two really need to arrive hand in hand. However, there\u2019s no indication that Google (or Apple, or Samsung, for that matter) is in a hurry to adopt silicon-carbon batteries. Some reports suggest the Pixel 11 Pro Fold might even have a smaller battery<\/a> than its predecessor.<\/p>\n Then there are impatient users like me who want the Pixel 11 Pro XL (and the rest of the Pixel 11 series, for that matter) to just charge faster. It doesn\u2019t have to be the quickest-charging flagship on the market, but filling a 5,200 mAh battery in less than an hour isn\u2019t a tall order by 2026 standards. Samsung has managed it for years and has eclipsed its previous record by some margin, proving it can be done without resorting to SuperVOOC, HyperCharge, or some other proprietary standard that makes plugs and power banks a compatibility quagmire.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one feature I want from the Pixel 11 Pro XL, it\u2019s faster charging.<\/p>\n However, fast charging a phone battery is not just a case of cramming more power in and watching the percentages tick up. Li-Ion batteries are incredibly sensitive to input voltage, requiring high-quality batteries and precision integrated circuits to carefully manage the cycle. Google\u2019s use of USB PD PPS is specifically designed to take some of the strain, but there\u2019s an art to configuring the setup that\u2019s made harder by its insistence on using what appear to be lower-quality, and presumably cheaper batteries<\/a>.<\/p>\n Converting power from the plug requires high-quality ICs to do efficiently and without imparting too much heat into the handsets. Then there are more expensive battery technologies, such as dual-cell technology pioneered by OnePlus and OPPO, that help reduce stress and improve power efficiency. It\u2019s clearly possible to make any modern smartphone charge quickly; it just needs to become a hardware priority.<\/p>\n None of this comes cheap, but this is the sort of hardware we should expect from the Pixel 11 Pro XL, a phone that will cost at least $1,199 \u2014 if RAM prices don\u2019t send the price tag skyward. Personally, I\u2019d rather Google invest in a little extra-premium hardware over another AI feature I\u2019ll never use. Having a phone charge in under an hour is quickly becoming a make-or-break feature for me, especially at this price. I\u2019ll probably skip the Pixel 11 series if nothing changes for the better this August.<\/p>\n![\"Pixel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Pixel-10-Pro-XL-battery-vs-power-charging-chart.jpg\"\/ "\\"Pixel")
<\/p>\n![\"2026](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-flagship-phone-charge-times.jpg\"\/ "\\"2026")
<\/p>\n![\"Pixel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Pixel-9-charging.jpg\"\/ "\\"Pixel")
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