[LG V20 Questions & Answers] br0adband:
Having said all that in the last post I made, a friend gave me a Samsung EP-TA20JBE charger last night, go figure. It's the first Samsung "fast charger" that I've had and I decided to plug it into my V20 and see what it showed. I know that if you use the Pixel chargers the battery info in the service menu will show USB_PD meaning it's communicating and charging using the Power Delivery standard. My regular Samsung 2A charger - plain old vanilla non-QC compatible straight 2A charger - shows USB_DCP when charging my V20 so that's a known thing; there is no QC support, no PD support, nothing but just pure current provided as requested.

Here's the funny thing:

The Samsung EP-TA20JBE apparently is a QC 3.0 compatible charger, but since it's made by Samsung what I see under the battery info is USB_HVDCP which I've never seen before. So I did research into the USB_HVDCP meaning and of course the HV means High Voltage.

What I discovered is that if you're using a true Qualcomm compliant QuickCharge 3.0 device with a true Qualcomm compliant QuickCharge 3.0 charger, your device should report it's getting QC3.0 under the battery info but that's where the fun begins because non-compliant hardware will just show "USB_HVDCP. Of course, because this is not an LG charger and the sense and communication stuff is not from them, it's falling back to Samsung's version of QC3.0 protocols - but what I discovered is that in such instances it's actually Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 in effect, it's just that on non-compliant chargers Qualcomm detects the charging protocol as USB_HVDCP.

So, I ran my V20 down to about 15% using a battery app that forces the device to use nearly 100% of the CPU, that took the better part of 45 minutes or so, and when the phone beeped to alert me it needed charging I stopped the battery rundown app, let the phone sit for about 15 minutes idle so it would cool down, then I plugged in the Samsung USB charger I picked up last night (using my Monoprice 26 gauge USB-C charging cable).

Normally if I charge the device using that Samsung vanilla 2A charger from 15% it will cause my V20 to get warm on the backside because it's pulling the full 2A from the charger and of course it'll get warm. It also takes roughly 55 minutes to about 1 hour solid to go from 15% to 85%, and the phone will stay warm till about 65% when the current pull changes to something lower, maybe 1.5A, and it continues to decline as the actual charge increases and of course the V20 cools down to various degrees (pun intended) as the current pull decreases.

But here's what I noticed using this Samsung USB charger:

I watched the charging indicator (screen off, I use AccuBattery which shows me the current battery percentage on the V20's second screen) and it was literally going up 1% every 35-40 seconds which I had never seen before, all the way to 85%. My V20 remained basically cool to the touch from the moment I plugged in that charger to the time AccuBattery alerted me about the 85% cap - that's what I have it set for to ensure I get a longer lifespan (measured in years) from the OEM LG cell I bought back in August, manufactured in Nov 2017 by the date on the battery.

So, I'm not sure what this all means but based on what I read about Qualcomm and how their chargers ID themselves, if you see USB_HVDCP that is QuickCharge 3.0 under the battery info in the service menu - it's not Power Delivery because the Samsung charger doesn't apparently support that protocol (but I'm not 100% sure on that one).

It's actually honest-to-goodness QuickCharge 3.0, according to the info I read yesterday afternoon, so while I'm still not 100% sure on the protocols or the various naming conventions like USB_PD, USB_DCP, USB_HVDCP, etc (I mean I know what they stand for, sure) and how the V20 identifies the charging protocols and usage, what I can for certain is that for the first time since I've owned my V20, I can charge it with this Samsung USB charger and never feel it get warm at all so for me that's a huge positive. Li-Ion batteries HATE heat buildup, that'll kill their effective lifespan (again measured in years) more than most anything else.

All the vanilla 2A or 1.8A chargers I have cause the phone to heat up during the charging process. I have a Motorola "TURBO" 25 watt QuickCharge 2.0 compatible microUSB charger that I used for testing purposes with a microUSB-to-USB-C adapter and under battery info that identifies as USB_DCP so that's QuickCharge 2.0 (which that particular charger is designed for) and the battery heats up when I use it. This new Samsung charger I just got last night, charges just as fast if not faster and there is NO heat buildup whatsoever that I could detect so, yep, QuickCharge 3.0 even if it's not identifying as QC3.0 under the battery info.

I suppose what I said earlier is now considered moot: the V20 DOES support QuickCharge 3.0, just not with the stock LG charger because it's not a QC 3.0 charger to begin with.

So, yeah, I guess I'll be using this Samsung charger from now on. :)