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The Samsung Galaxy S8 comes with the USB Type-C connector. I noticed that the USB-A Male to USB Type-C Male cables that are being sold often have a USB Specification associated with them. The Amazon Basics cables, for example, come in 2.0 and 3.1. Is the 3.1 specification cable required to get the fastest charging speed? Or will the 2.0 cable provide the same speed?

Also, there have been many fast charging specifications like QuickCharge 2.0, 3.0, 4.0. Which quick charge specification and version does the Galaxy S8 actually use for the fastest charge? And is it compatible with older specifications like QC2.0?

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Which Galaxy S8 do you have?

The version with a Qualcomm Snapdragon supports QuickCharge 4, which is backwards compatible.

For the cable choice, QuickCharge 3 used 2.5A on 5V to charge. So your cable and charged need to support that amperage. What QuickCharge 4 uses is unknown so far.

In order to achieve the maximum you need usb 3 with a type C connector (specified for 3A). However many manufacturers sell usb 2 charger with 2A or even more, including Samsung with their fastcharge. The cable itself does not really matter, however, to be save buy a 3 or 3.1 cable, since those were built for 3A of power.

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  • I was unaware that there were versions that did not have the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Mine is the Snapdragon 835, which it looks like does support QC4. However I don't believe the QC4 support is turned on.
    – Luke
    Apr 25, 2017 at 12:40
  • Samsung sells the S8 with their own Exynos processor in some countries. The Exynos of course does not support QC at all, although I assume Samsung implemented something like it. If the S8 with a Snapdragon officially supports QC4 is yet unknown since there is very little known about QC4 in general. But you got the specs/requirements for QC3 which the Galaxy S8 definitely supports.
    – Walter Wolf
    Apr 25, 2017 at 12:55
  • I haven't even seen anywhere that says the S8 actually supports QC3, do you have any reference for that? I know in the S7 they actually disabled QC3 support.
    – Luke
    Apr 25, 2017 at 20:01
  • Yeah you are right, i misread something. I wrote QC3 because I thought the S7 and Note7 used it. But they used QC2 so you can be pretty sure the S8 will at least support QC2. However, the situation doesn't really change for the cables. Get a usb 3 cable to be sure it was built for the power draw of QC2 or 3 or even 4.
    – Walter Wolf
    Apr 26, 2017 at 7:04
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I think USB 2 or 3 shoud nog affect charging speed, as you are not tranferring data.. But i do not know what type of fast charge the S8 uses..

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    The later USB specifications do specifically call out maximum voltages and current limits though, which makes me think it might affect charging speed.
    – Luke
    Apr 23, 2017 at 21:31
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    As @Luke indicates: while USB2 maxes out at 500mA, USB3 can provide up to 1.8A (source). So if the device is capable of taking more than 500mA charging power, it makes a huge difference in charging speed – up to almost factor 4. Of course that's not only a matter of the cable, but also of the port you connect to ;)
    – Izzy ♦
    Apr 24, 2017 at 10:31
  • Oh alrigt! Learning something new every day! ;) Thanks!
    – Maarten Weyns
    Apr 24, 2017 at 14:30

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