With just days to go before the Samsung Galaxy S24 launch, pretty much everything about Samsung's flagship appears to have leaked – but there's one thing missing from the specification compared to the iPhone 15 Pro.
We're expecting the Galaxy S24 to have 25W wired charging for the standard model, with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Ultra getting 45W wired. And all three models are expected to come with 15W wireless charging. But so far, not a single leak has mentioned or predicted that any Galaxy S24 will support the next generation of wireless charging, Qi2. And that's unusual, because while Samsung usually leads Apple in terms of wireless charging support the iPhone 15 has Qi2 and it appears that the Samsung Galaxy S24 does not.
What is Qi2 and why does it matter?
Qi2, pronounced "chee two", is the next generation of the Qi wireless charging standard. Qi is absolutely everywhere, and Qi2 promises to make it even better by delivering faster and more efficient charging via its precise magnetic connectors. It shares a lot with Apple's proprietary MagSafe, which may explain why Apple has it and Samsung doesn't appear to: making MagSafe in the iPhone 15 work with Qi2 is a much simpler job than adding it to a phone that doesn't have it.
There's no doubt that Qi2 is coming to the best Android phones: Samsung, along with a who's who of tech firms, has pledged its support for the standard. But unless the rumours and leaks have missed the detail from the Samsung Galaxy S24 specifications, it looks like the standard's relatively recent arrival – it was only launched in late 2024 – means it was too late for Samsung to get it into the S24 range, because of course phones go into mass production quite some time before the official launch, let alone the on-sale date.
The absence of Qi2 is hardly a big deal when you look at the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S24 specs, and the existing wireless charging support is already very good. But you can expect it to get better in the Samsung Galaxy S25 next year – by which time Qi2 should be well established and with a huge choice of available hardware that supports it.
