Uncertainty is still spreading, but MWC 2022 (MWC22), a global mobile communication event, has arrived as scheduled, whether it is an online live broadcast or an offline booth demonstration, mainstream mobile device manufacturers have disclosed their thinking about the future. What capabilities we can use on mobile phones, and what changes will occur in the mobile Internet experience, here can be a glimpse.
For the most popular mobile phone manufacturers, MWC22 has a more practical objective significance than ever: in the context of the slowdown in the global mobile phone market growth and the cooling of consumer enthusiasm for changing machines, how to innovate and create products to find opportunities for revival? Is there an expected value in terms of investment in 5G and other new technologies? Find out now with the new news on the first day of MWC22.
High-end mobile phones compete for glory, and low-end mobile phones support families
MWC regular OPPO continues to explore the potential of charging technology this year, first of all, the longevity version of the super flash charge with a strange name but will be very practical: 150W SuperVOOC technology can be charged with 50% of the power in 5 minutes, charged to 100% in 15 minutes, the volume of the charging head is similar to the previous 65W, and the effective capacity of the battery is more than 80% Of the cycle life, from 800 times to 1600 times.
Along with it is the 240W SuperVOOC, which can charge the equivalent 4500mAh battery to 100% in 9 minutes. OPPO rarely predicted the 150W fast charging commercial time point, a plus brand will debut this technology in the second quarter, realme's true self GT Neo3 will also be equipped, and also announced the loss and temperature of the UDCA fast charging architecture technology.
Since the Galaxy S22 series has been released a few days ago, Samsung did not release any new mobile phones during the exhibition, but it brought more important news than the new machine: Lu Taiwen, the head of Samsung mobile phones, said that the Note series of mobile phones will appear in the Ultra version of the S series (that is, the super cup) in the future. The flagship positioning that originally belonged to the Note series in the second half of the year, or officially replaced by folding screen mobile phones.
Honor is finding its rhythm of launching products, bringing with it the new flagship Magic4 series on the MWC22. The "Eye of the Muse" has many similarities with the previous generation in terms of design, and the multi-camera combination of the main camera + ultra-wide angle + telephoto is included in it, forming a family design that consumers are familiar with. Magic4 Pro is equipped with a 1920Hz PWM dimming quad curved screen that supports LTPO, and domestic screens are also progressing together.
The main battlefield of TCL's mobile phone business has shifted to foreign countries, and in the past two years, it has begun to emphasize the TCL brand on the consumer side. MWC22 on TCL announced its 30 series of mobile phones, five new machines are positioned in the low-end, the price is 139 euros to 249 euros (about 985 yuan to 1763 yuan), it can be seen that it is still biased towards pragmatism and operator channel demand.
This does not mean that TCL does not have any ambitions to enter the high-end market, Huaxing Optoelectronics has made it have more advanced screen technology, and this exhibition has brought TCL's folding screen concept products for another year. One is the previously seen reel + folding device TCL Fold N' Roll, and the other is the TCL 360° Ultra Flex, which allows folding inwards or folding outwards.
Nokia's mobile phone brand, run by HMD, still has its sights on the low-end market that has helped them regain profitability: the three new machines are the second-generation Nokia C2, Nokia C21 and Nokia C21 Plus, and the most expensive version is only in the early 1,000 yuan. Nokia Communications proposes the concept of borderlessness, which seeks to provide solutions that bridge the digital divide, provide more opportunities and promote innovation.
This year's notebooks are a bit "unique"
At the same time as holding the rescuer series conference in China, Lenovo also launched a number of notebook computers for overseas markets. The first is the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5, which means that this high-end business series has been updated to the fifth generation, using a 12th-generation Core H processor, with the highest RTX 3080Ti optional, and the starting price in Europe is nearly 20,000 yuan.
Lenovo also updated the ARM architecture notebook products, with the appearance of a traditional business notebook ThinkPad X13s Gen 1, equipped with Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 and 16:10 ratio 1200p resolution 13.3-inch screen, recycled magnesium fuselage weight control at 1.06kg, support Wi-Fi 6E and 5G network, endurance up to 28 hours, starting at $1099 (about 6933 yuan).
Bold and innovative notebooks have not become as mainstream as expected, but there are still manufacturers willing to continue to improve their products to provide satisfaction for users who like to experience such as touch. Samsung brought the Galaxy Book2 Pro and galaxy Book2 Pro 360, continuing the extreme thin and light thinking of the previous generation, the former 13.3-inch version of 0.87kg, 15.6-inch exclusive version is only 1.17kg.
Both Evo-certified notebooks are equipped with 1080P resolution AMOLED screens, processors with 12th-generation Core i5-1240P and i7-1260P, AND USB-C interfaces with HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jacks and microSD readers. The Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 is a bit heavier, but can flip the screen 360 degrees to tablet mode, supporting touch and S-Pen stylus operation.
After the mobile phone business encountered difficulties, Huawei actively tried to find a breakthrough in other consumer digital products, this time releasing the MatePad Paper, MatePad 10.4 2022 and Sound Joy overseas. The latter two are large-screen tablets and portable Bluetooth speaker iterations, the former is an ink level board that brings experience innovation, equipped with HarmonyOS 2, weighing 360 grams and writing with 32 levels of brightness can be quickly refreshed.
In addition to speed, 5G is also paying close attention to power consumption
Qualcomm brought the Snapdragon X70 baseband (modem and RF system). With download rates of up to 10Gbps, support for 5G commercial bands from 600MHz to 41GHz, millimeter wave and Sub-6GHz, and 5G multisimmer cards, an upgradable architecture allows support for 5G Release 16 features through software updates, plus millimeter wave standalone networking that may be used in enterprise 5G networks.
The biggest change in the Snapdragon X70 is the addition of AI to optimize speed, stability and energy efficiency, reduce power consumption and extend device battery life. Judging from the time node of the sample in the second half of 2022, the next generation of Snapdragon 8 platform (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) may integrate this baseband, and the iPhone 15 released in 2023 is also expected to be equipped with it. As for whether it can promote the evolution of the mobile Internet, it is the future.
Wi-Fi 6 has not yet been used on a large scale, but Wi-Fi 7 is within reach: Qualcomm released the FastConnect 7800 connection system, which supports Bluetooth 5.3, which doubles the signal range, and Wi-Fi 7, which can delay less than 2ms and downlink speeds of up to 5.8Gbps. Judging from the Qualcomm planning map, it will be seen on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, VR/AR/XR devices in the future.
Qualcomm also seems to want to reflect its advantages in communication technology and integrated mobile device experience on more levels, and during MWC22 also released Snapdragon Connect, which packaged the existing Snapdragon 5G, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi experiences into a new brand. It can be seen that Qualcomm intends to build a replica of the Evo platform in the field of handheld mobile devices, but consumer recognition still needs to be cultivated.
MediaTek, which intends to impact the high-end mobile chip market, officially launched the Tianji 8000 series during the MWC. From the positioning point of view, the stronger performance of the Tianji 8100 belongs to the light flagship, filling the gap between the mid-range and the flagship. The difference between Tianji 8100 and Tianji 8000 is mainly reflected in the CPU large core, APU, GPU main frequency, while Tianji 8100 supports higher screen resolution.
Tianji 8000 series has an energy consumption ratio worthy of user expectations, Tianji 8100 in MOBA games, chicken eating mobile games, sandbox games and other common heavy-duty scenarios, have a more stable running frame rate than competitors, as well as more energy-saving power performance. At present, there are Redmi, realme, OPPO, OnePlus and other brands, announcing that they will launch mobile phones equipped with Tianji 8000 series.
OPPO brings the new 5G CPE T2, which uses snapdragon X62 baseband to support 5G SA/NSA networks at the same time, and provides Wi-Fi 6 and Mesh networking related functions. ZTE also brought a new generation of 5G CPE product MC888 Ultra, using Snapdragon X65 baseband to support the maximum 4.92Gbps data network downlink rate, but also support the mainstream high-end routers have 2.5G network port and Wi-Fi 6E.
At MWC22, wait for tomorrow with the industry
In terms of MWC22's open mobile phone products and technologies, the mobile phone industry shows a clear polarization trend. On the one hand, high-end mobile phones continue to increase innovation, the fastest charging, the most special form, the most advanced network must be added, on the other hand, waist manufacturers retreat to the low-end field, relying on the "cheap bowl" to obtain the market. Either way, there are more distinct business intentions than in the past, after all, it is more important to be alive.
But there are also many levels of weakness behind this, mobile phones can no longer do the general revolutionary progress of the iPhone, even if it changes the way of use and opens up a folding screen at an ultra-high-end price, it is still only a smaller plaything and cannot become a popular product for the public. At the same time as the cost rises, the development of SoC has reached a bottleneck period, making mobile phone manufacturers encounter more constraints when developing high-end products.
When you come to other devices, you will find that the innovation accumulation of mobile phones in the past decade is gradually radiating to more categories. The biggest beneficiary is naturally the laptop, Intel, AMD x86 or Qualcomm-based ARM architecture, can now get much longer battery life than usual, can also be more easily connected to the data network, but can be more thin and light than the "thin and light" two or three years ago.
What is considered the VR/AR/XR device of the future is still in the preparatory stage. Although there are now application scenarios and imagination space that have begun to take shape, in order to truly realize the "meta-universe" that technology companies around the world are eager to try, they must also pursue the performance of the whole machine, network connection capabilities and battery life performance that are much more advanced than now, and will still be a frequent visitor to the additional links of MWC booths.