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HTC Teases Rapid Charger 2.0 Accessory for HTC One M8, HTC Desire Eye

 & David Murphy Freelancer

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Get excited, HTC One fans. The smartphone manufacturer is close to releasing its Rapid Charger 2.0 accessory for its HTC One line of phones—or, at least, some of them. Those using the plug will be able to charge their devices "40% faster than standard chargers," reads HTC's description.

However, there are two issues with said accessory. First up, you can't actually order it just yet. While it appears on HTC's site, there's no "add to cart" button, or "buy now," or anything like that. Presumably, HTC will be adding that at some point soon. According to a report from HTCSource, the first batch of accessories is allegedly on the way from Taiwan, hence the delay.

Second, only a handful of HTC devices work with the new fast-charging device. Right now, the list appears to be just the HTC Desire Eye—coming soon—as well as the metal HTC One M8 and the plastic HTC One E8.

It appears that you can still get some kind of a benefit by using the charger with older HTC Devices that support Qualcomm's Quick Charge technology. That includes the HTC One, which runs version one of the tech. Your charging just won't be as fast as what you could get in v2, which can allegedly charge a 3300 mAh smartphone to 60 percent in a mere 30 minutes.

Just to put that battery charging in perspective, HTC's implementation isn't as great as what you'd find on, say, Motorola's Droid Turbo. Using the aforementioned manufacturer's Turbo Charging feature, you can eight hours of battery life on just a 15-minute plug into the wall. Like HTC, however, you have to use Motorola's special Turbo Charger accessory in order for the process to work—standard adapters need not apply.

There's still no word on the HTC accessory's pricing, but we can't think it would cost much more than Motorola's, if that—$35, if ordering directly from Motorola itself.

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David Murphy

David Murphy

Freelancer

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month gig turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he later rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors. For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).

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