Do we really need a notebook with a folding screen?
Looking at the mobile phone market in the past two years, a number of mobile phone manufacturers have successively launched folding screen mobile phones, and with the continuous improvement of related technologies, consumers and the market have slowly accepted such a "strange" mobile phone.
But in this vast army of folding screens, Apple, as the "big brother", is rarely absent, perhaps Apple believes that the folding screen mobile phones on the market today are difficult to meet their expectations. However, Apple will not easily let go of this "fat meat", in recent days, well-known research analysts released a report that Apple is currently exploring the development of a folding screen MacBook, as soon as 2023 officially meet with us.
Seeing this news, I can't help but be a little confused, in this era when folding screen mobile phones are difficult to be accepted by all consumers, why does Apple take the risk to try a "new product" that looks more unreliable? And the folding screen laptop is really the ultimate form of the notebook in our minds?
Apple wants to change the world again?
It has been exactly fourteen years since Jobs took out the MacBook Air from the kraft paper bag, and it can be said that the MacBook Air, which was extremely thin and light, not only changed our understanding of laptops, but also changed the future of the entire laptop market. Intel even came up with the concept of "Ultrabook" and continues to this day.
But what is puzzling is that the appearance of the MacBook series has hardly changed in the past fourteen years, just narrowing the screen border, reducing the thickness of the fuselage, and introducing several new colors. Even if it is as strong as Apple, consumers will have a dissatisfied day, they are not willing to spend more than ten thousand prices to buy a product that looks indistinguishable from the previous generation, perhaps this is one of the reasons why Apple chose to launch a folding screen MacBook.
Judging from the revelations abroad, the folding screen MacBook that Apple is developing will have a 20-inch display and cancel the physical keyboard, and instead will be a pair of "virtual keyboards" displayed on the screen, when the user does not need to use the keyboard to type, it can be expanded as a complete display.
At a glance, the folding screen MacBook seems to be quite good, and it can be used as a laptop every day, but the keyboard feels a little worse. When you don't need to work mobile, it transforms into an iMac, a large 20-inch screen that can be used with an external keyboard to take into account a variety of scenarios.
The picture shows a rendering
As early as 2013, Apple applied for a relevant patent for the one-piece metal hinge required for folding screen notebooks, which can make the fuselage joint highly integrated, so that the product reflects the "design aesthetic" that Apple has always emphasized.
In my opinion, the biggest advantage of Apple's folding screen notebook is that it is small in size, easy to carry, and can be used with an external keyboard and mouse to become a complete emergency tool for those who often need to go out to work.
But in fact, Apple is not the first manufacturer to launch a folding screen notebook, as early as 2020, Lenovo launched and sold the industry's first notebook without a physical keyboard and a foldable screen - ThinkPad X1 Fold. It has a 13.3-inch screen, folded inward can be divided into 2 9.6-inch displays, folding life of more than 30,000 times, in October 2020 on the official website, the price of a single machine is about 20,000 yuan.
It has three use forms: after unfolding, it can be used as a desktop display; after bending, it is a full-screen tablet, which opens the virtual keyboard in the lower part of the screen, which can type like a traditional notebook; if it is equipped with its supporting Bluetooth keyboard, the keyboard can be attached to the lower part of the display and can become a standard PC. Almost exactly the same as the exposed Apple folding screen notebook.
Compared with traditional notebooks, its biggest advantage is that it is lighter and easier to carry, and the weight of 999g is even lighter than some tablets. In subsequent updates, Lenovo also specially equipped it with an ultra-thin Bluetooth keyboard and stylus so that users can better work and process transactions. And these points are worth learning and learning from Apple, after all, consumers need a productivity tool that can really do the office rather than a cool-looking "high-tech" product.
Folding screen notebook? Maybe it's a pseudo-requirement
Take the aforementioned Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold as an example, although its innovation is worthy of recognition, but also to a certain extent for the stagnant notebook market to provide a new idea, but in the eyes of most consumers, it is more like a manufacturer to "show muscle" and produce products, and not many consumers are willing to spend 20,000 or 30,000 to buy it. Although Lenovo launched a months-long marketing warm-up before the launch, it was still unable to arouse the market's interest in it, and as of press time, the number of comments on JD.com was only more than two hundred.
And in the comment area, I also found that many buyers reported that there would be black screens, screen failures, and stuttering during use. It is not difficult to see that compared with folding screen mobile phones, folding screen computers are far from ready in terms of production costs, market acceptance, technical maturity, and after-sales service.
The reason why I think that folding screen computers are difficult to become mainstream in a short period of time is mainly divided into three points, the first point, practicality. Users buy notebooks for work or entertainment, but whether it is typing or playing games according to skills, they need a reasonable and easy-to-use keyboard.
Some readers may think that the manufacturer did not reserve half a screen for you as a keyboard? But this situation is only suitable for small-screen devices such as mobile phones, and for "large" devices such as notebooks, the feedback touch and speed of the virtual keyboard are far less than the physical keys.
Whether it is a notebook keyboard, a capacitive keyboard, a mechanical keyboard, a folding keyboard, etc., in the final analysis, it is through the typing of the word key, to input the signal (typing, games, etc.); different structural methods, in fact, is to pursue the comfort of typing. No matter how much the virtual keyboard is optimized and how to upgrade, it is impossible to compare with the traditional physical keys in terms of feel.
Second, durability. Taking folding mobile phones as an example, no matter how hard manufacturers try to improve the folding screen and hinge, but as far as the current technology is concerned, it is still impossible to completely remove the creases and fragility on the folding screen. Even a small grain of dust can make tens of thousands of folding screen mobile phones directly scrapped, and the maintenance price is also unbearable for ordinary people.
Compared with folding screen mobile phones, folding screen computers not only make the screen bigger, but also the difficulty of hinge development is further increased. To achieve the width of the PC, the thickness of the mobile phone, the difficulty is that it is difficult to synchronize left and right, may produce distortion, the strength of a single part is weak, the processing difficulty is greater, this series of problems greatly affects the flatness of the folding screen, and the product yield is reduced.
In addition, don't forget that the main selling point of folding screen notebooks is the oversized portable display, which means that if you want to fully experience its advantages, you must unfold and fold it frequently, and the durability will inevitably be lower than that of folding screen mobile phones. (After all, the folding screen mobile phone can use the external screen to handle affairs)
The third and most important point is cost. Judging from the several folding screen notebooks currently on sale, the price is basically around 20,000 yuan, considering the low yield of the folding screen and the need to redesign related components. It is understandable that the price is set higher, but if this is just in exchange for a screen, but also to sacrifice the original experience such as durability and thickness, it is obvious that there is some inversion.
Considering that several folding screen notebooks on the market are currently in the "fledgling" stage, it is not difficult to understand that there are such shortcomings, even Apple may not be able to overcome these problems, after all, in terms of current technology, it is undoubtedly difficult to make the folding screen notebook meet consumer expectations.
However, as a latecomer, Apple is capable of overcoming these difficulties, I personally think that Apple's folding screen notebook may focus on improving three points on the basis of the ThinkPad X1 Fold, the first is the crease of the screen, as mentioned earlier, Apple applied for a related hinge patent as early as 2013, which is undoubtedly in the next big game, and with Apple's almost morbid "aesthetic", they should not let their products have an ugly line that will reflect and recede.
The second is to improve the shape of the external keyboard, which can actually be seen on the iPad's magic control keyboard, easy to disassemble and at the same time assume the protective shell, keyboard input of the magic control keyboard is likely to appear in a lighter form on the folding screen notebook. Of course, it is not ruled out that Apple will add a vibration motor to the laptop, so that the virtual keyboard has a feedback effect comparable to that of the physical keyboard.
Third, I believe that everyone is most concerned about the point, Apple's folding screen laptop is likely to pull down the price of the entire folding screen notebook, in short, it is cheaper. Some readers may have questions, Apple's products have always been more expensive, how to talk about cheaper? Don't forget the iPad Pro 12.9 released last year, which not only uses an expensive mini-LED screen, but also pulls the price down to four digits. For Apple, a company with a strong production chain in hand, the program of "opening the two degrees" is not impossible.
Innovation can be, but not too radical
Going back to the original question, what exactly does a consumer need for a laptop? From a personal point of view, the laptop should be a simple, stable, reliable productivity tool, at least it can't drop the chain at a critical moment. Therefore, all upgrades to notebooks should be built on this foundation.
Whether it's Lenovo Asus or Apple, the folding-screen computers they launch are likely to lead to only two outcomes — one is to completely change the design of laptops, and the other is to launch a new product category. But the question now is: Can it really solve the problem?
The reason why there are consumers willing to pay for folding screen mobile phones is because it can indeed provide a large field of view screen that traditional mobile phones do not have, and the efficiency in some office scenarios has been improved. Whether the current folding screen laptop can create a new use scenario, I put a big question mark on this.
It is foreseeable that screen folding technology will be more and more popular with manufacturers and the market in the future, but it will take a long time to become a real mainstream product, anyway, at present, the folding screen is still a pseudo demand created by the user itself. However, the gear of time will not stop, perhaps in today's view, the folding screen notebook is a very unreliable product, but who knows in two or three or five years, it will completely change the shape of the laptop, and whether Apple can become the leader, everything needs to be tested by time.