CNET has published a new charging comparison built around a simple question: when a phone is nearly empty, how much battery can it recover in just half an hour? Based on that test, the iPhone 17 Pro came out on top overall across the 33 phones CNET reviewed for the US market over the past year.
The methodology focused on low-battery recovery rather than advertised peak wattage. Each phone started the test at 10% charge or less, then charged for 30 minutes. CNET recorded how much battery was restored through wired charging and wireless charging, and then averaged those two results into a combined score.
That approach means the ranking is really about real-world short-burst charging performance. A phone with a higher theoretical charging ceiling doesn’t automatically win if it doesn’t turn that into stronger battery recovery in the first 30 minutes.
In wired charging alone, Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra took first place by recovering 76% in half an hour. The iPhone 17 Pro followed closely at 74%, tied with Motorola’s Moto G Stylus (2025). OnePlus 15 reached 72%, while the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and Samsung Galaxy S25 FE each hit 69%.
Wireless charging showed a wider gap. The iPhone 17 Pro led that category with a 55% recovery in 30 minutes. The iPhone 17 Pro Max followed at 53%, the iPhone 17 reached 49%, and the iPhone Air came in at 47%. The Galaxy S26 Ultra placed fifth on wireless at 39%.
Put together, those results gave Apple the strongest all-around showing in this particular 30-minute charging test. The takeaway isn’t that every iPhone charges faster on paper than every Android phone. It’s that in CNET’s low-battery top-up scenario, the iPhone 17 Pro delivered the best balance between wired and wireless recovery.
For buyers who care about fast recovery before heading out the door, that’s a useful distinction. A phone that can add a meaningful amount of battery in half an hour often matters more in daily use than a headline charging spec that only appears under ideal conditions.
