Text | Ray Tech leitech
Not long ago, Samsung executives admitted to the media at MWC2022 that the Galaxy Note series mobile phones will be inherited by the Ultra models of the S series, in other words, the Galaxy Note series that has been traversing the rivers and lakes for about ten years has been officially announced. Just when everyone is still sorry for the demise of the Galaxy Note series of mobile phones, the flagship product line of another mobile phone brand has issued a "critical illness notice": On the morning of March 3, according to Sina Technology, Vivo's NEX mobile phone division and its subordinate organizations have been abolished, and the product and marketing team that originally served vivo NEX series mobile phones has been incorporated into the vivo team.
After the lunch break, Jia Jingdong, a Weibo user certified as "Vice President of Vivo Brand" on vivo, responded, "Any expectations of NEX can be answered on the new products of the X series." At this point, I believe it has been made very clear that from now on NEX is no longer an independent brand, but is merged into the X series of mobile phones, may exist as a special edition, or may not exist at all, because most of its shapes and gods will be inherited by the X series of mobile phones.
Vivo NEX product line has been placed high hopes by vivo, the press conference is huge, the product has an independent research and development and marketing team, and the style of doing things is different from that of ordinary vivo mobile phones. However, like the Samsung Galaxy Note series of mobile phones, the vivo NEX mobile phone has not been updated for several years, and the latest product is the vivo NEX 3S released in March 2020.
Over the years, netizens have been asking "when will the next generation of NEX be released", and the attitude of vivo is somewhat ambiguous, to the effect that they feel that "the time is not ripe" and "there is no experience in technology to support the new NEX" cloud, which is two years. Nowadays, the fate of vivo NEX is finally settled, although the end of the vivo NEX series of mobile phones is indeed some regret, but for Xiao Lei, the final outcome is not surprising at all.
vivo NEX, "Debut is the peak"
When the time is pulled back to June 2018, Xiao Lei still vaguely remembers the grand situation when the vivo NEX first-generation mobile phone appeared. After the vivo NEX appeared, as the screen lit up, all the media guests present were impressed by its eye-catching visual impact. Although there have been xiaomi mix and other mobile phones to launch the so-called "full screen" design, but until the vivo NEX appeared the "full screen" design of smart phones has become relatively complete: through the hidden front camera design, vivo NEX truly realized the concept of "only one screen on the front", while more than 90% of the front screen ratio is also ahead of many peers.
From the first-hand photos taken by Xiao Lei at the press conference at that time, it can be seen that the front design of vivo NEX still has great visual impact from today's point of view, and the more "slim" border weakens the boundary between the mobile phone screen and the real world, of course, the most practical significance is to increase the screen size while keeping the overall size of the mobile phone unchanged, or to reduce the size of the mobile phone while keeping the screen size unchanged.
No matter how you look at it, the emergence of vivo NEX is an event of "epoch-making" level and a milestone in the industry. If Xiaomi MIX is the forerunner of the concept of "full screen", then vivo NEX is the best implementer of the concept of full screen, and at that time it was even the "representative" and "benchmark" of this concept.
Unfortunately, vivo NEX is really "debut is the peak", from the breakthrough level of the product, the follow-up products of the NEX series such as vivo NEX dual-screen version, vivo NEX 3/3S can not reach the height of the original NEX, in terms of "exploring technological breakthroughs", the next few generations of products are also some "flow in the form" and "innovation for innovation".
The market's doubts about vivo NEX reached its peak on the third generation NEX, when the vivo NEX 3 did not differ much from mainstream mobile phones in terms of parameters and screen technology, but rarely used a large curvature "waterfall screen" design, which caused a lot of discussion in the industry.
Proponents believe that vivo NEX 3 has reached the peak of previous generations of mobile phones in aesthetics, the hyperboloid screen with high curvature makes the borders on both sides of the phone almost invisible, and the excellent processing accuracy makes the phone itself become very "advanced", giving people a strong "finely crafted" texture as soon as it is started.
If the proponents of vivo NEX 3 are mostly "romantics," its opponents must be "pragmatists." Vivo NEX 3 is fundamentally a product for visual services, although this waterfall screen is quite good-looking, but the disadvantages are also prominent: flashy.
Let's review Lei Technology's evaluation article in 2019, Xiao Lei, as the review author of that year, has not changed his ideas to this day. In general, vivo NEX 3, a waterfall screen with r&D costs of more than 200 million yuan, has indeed greatly improved the appearance of the product, but the display is incomplete, the sides of the side color cast, and the software adaptation problems are almost always plaguing the users of vivo NEX 3, and more importantly, vivo NEX 3 is not equipped with a high-refresh screen even at 90Hz in the second half of 2019, and the overall fluency is slightly inferior in comparison with competitors.
This is just a detail, but it seems to give us some of the contradictions that exist on the vivo NEX series: what kind of product is it going to make? Although the mission is to explore, is it the upper limit of exploration design or the upper limit of experience?
Apparently, vivo NEX at the time chose the former. But in the first generation of NEX, everyone's screen level is about the same, you and I are 60Hz, 1080P screen, consumer requirements for the screen is also more conventional, so NEX in the visual article is feasible, but also can indeed make a breakthrough. But by the time of NEX 3, the competition for screen parameters has taken off, and major head manufacturers are thinking about how to upgrade the experience and capture consumers by improving the basic parameters of the screen, at this time, the priority of screen competition has long been not to "look good".
But then again, how can the improvement of screen parameters reflect the advanced and extraordinary vivo NEX series? Looking to the illusory under-screen camera technology? Or is it possible to play with the screen of a smartphone in form? Neither one seems to be a pathway.
Speaking of which, it seems that vivo NEX will be "downgraded", incorporated into vivo other mobile phone production lines is also clear, the high homogenization of smart phones makes the NEX series that focuses on design differences unable to start, even if it is barely launched, we believe that it is difficult to open a gap with conventional flagships in appearance design, and cannot give consumers too much deep impression.
However, what really made the vivo NEX series sentenced to death was because of "cannibalism".
Impact high-end vivo has a better candidate
Since the beginning of its birth, vivo NEX series mobile phones have a very clear goal, to help vivo gain a firm foothold in the high-end market, and even compete with high-end market benchmarks such as Huawei, Samsung, and Apple. Unfortunately, the ideal is very full, the reality is very bone, in the two years from 2018 to 2020, vivo NEX series mobile phones basically have no sense of existence in the high-end market, not to mention what impact on Huawei and Apple.
IDC released the "share of smartphones in China's price segment of more than $600 in the first half of 2020" released by IDC in the second half of 2020, showing that the top five manufacturers in the market above $600 (about 4300 yuan) are Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO and Samsung, and Vivo is not among the top five.
Considering that the life cycle of vivo NEX series mobile phones is 2018 to 2020, combined with this data, it may be shown that although vivo NEX has assumed the responsibility of impacting the high-end in the past two years, it has not completed the task very well, so that vivo cannot even enter the top five in the high-end market, which is very inconsistent with its own high-profile ranking of "top three in the Chinese market".
Although the vivo NEX series mobile phones are weak in the high-end market, the X series, which once dominated the mid-range market, has unexpectedly achieved success in the case of rising prices.
Take the latest flagship vivo X70 series as an example, in which the positioning and starting price of X70 Pro and X70 Pro+ have been further improved, but this has not extinguished the enthusiasm of consumers. At the end of last year, Counterpoint pointed out that thanks to the hot sales of X70 Pro series mobile phones, Vivo's market share in the mid-to-high-end market ($500-$599) increased by 10% compared with last year, indicating that the high-end strategy based on vivo X70 has achieved unexpected success.
If the homogenization of smartphones and the slippery slope of the necessity of design innovation have made vivo NEX begin to "doubt life", then the counterattack of the X series is the last straw that crushes the camel.
As a product with a strong "romantic" atmosphere, the vivo NEX series itself will inevitably face more doubts.
The first is the market's question, who is the vivo NEX series sold to? If it is sold to digital enthusiasts, then its price is not close enough, and the book data is not extreme enough; if it is sold to high-end people, then the compromise and inadequacy of experience will make them hesitate when choosing. Moreover, after the supply chain matures, we can see that such features as lifting cameras can be quickly copied, and waterfall screens are unattended, in other words, vivo NEX is proud of the "design moat", either fragile or non-existent.
Then there is the consumer's doubt, in their view, if the choice of vivo NEX series needs to be trade-offs and compromises, then Xiao Lei believes that his audience will inevitably be narrower. As a high-end mobile phone, it is impossible to hope for the coincidence of "Bole Soma", and it is not possible to only do products for some consumers to attract those who are willing to sacrifice basic functions for design.
On the contrary, Vivo's X series mobile phone is much clearer in terms of playing style, and the most important thing is that it is very clear to do the public mobile phone, and it has captured the function point of the image, which ordinary consumers are more concerned about and more easily perceived, and selectively did not spend too much energy on the fine carving of the screen. It is not surprising that this kind of "volkswagen flagship" with a wider audience and stronger comprehensive configuration can eventually achieve success in terms of sales that far exceeds the vivo NEX series.
When the X series of mobile phones successfully stand at the high end, vivo NEX is also a bit redundant. First, now that the homogenization of smart phones is serious, the head of the big factory can not do differentiation, especially the bottleneck of the screen form makes vivo NEX lose the direction of evolution; second, the X series has become a more recognized representative of high-end products, what is the need for vivo to insist on it and increase internal friction for no reason?
The exit of vivo NEX, in the final analysis, is still because it cannot keep up with the times.