Talking about the mobile phone with the highest retention rate and the strongest sense of existence in the past two years, Huawei's Mate40 series is absolutely on the list, on the one hand, because this mobile phone is indeed enough to bucket, even if it is placed in 2022, it will not be outdated, on the other hand, because it is Huawei's last flagship mobile phone that supports 5G networks.
But in any case, Huawei's Mate40 series has been released for more than a year, and it should have been updated long ago, but in the case of serious lack of cores, Huawei can only ensure its market share by launching 4G mobile phones. 5G commercialization has also been more than three years, and overall, domestic users have a high acceptance of 5G mobile phones. Coupled with the lengthening of the replacement cycle in recent years, everyone is obviously more inclined to 5G mobile phones when replacing new machines. Although Huawei has good brand recognition, under the trend of 5G mobile phones gradually becoming mainstream, it is difficult for consumers to accept consumption downgrading to buy 4G mobile phones.
However, according to the latest revelations, the engineering machine of Huawei's Mate50 series has been determined and will be officially released as soon as July this year.
Everything is ready, only 5G?
According to the news of @Factory Director Guan, Huawei's Mate50 series will be released in July, but there is a high probability that only the standard version and pro version are two versions, and the higher positioning Pro+ and Porsche limited edition are likely to be absent. In addition, he also gave two renderings, and said that one of them was the final design of Huawei's Mate50 series.
The picture shows a rendering
As can be seen from the accompanying picture, the two mobile phones are very similar on the front screen, both are curved screens with large curvature + centered hollow front lens, the main difference is in the design of the rear lens, one adopts Huawei's classic circular scheme, but it seems to have added a circular second screen; the other is to superimpose the P50 series of Vientiane double ring design in the ring, making the entire lens module look extremely complex, but also more recognizable.
In terms of other configurations, Huawei Mate 50 series may be equipped with a screen that supports LTPO 2.0 technology, supports a maximum 120Hz refresh rate, 1.07 billion color display, 1920Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, and is expected to be equipped with a 50 million pixel outsole main camera, built-in 4500mAh battery, and support 100W fast charging. The overall configuration is indeed worthy of the positioning of the flagship phone.
But about the Mate50 series, I believe that most consumers are most concerned about whether it supports 5G networks, after all, 5G networks are now the mainstream, and a mobile phone that sells to six or seven thousand is indeed a little unreasonable if it does not support 5G. However, it is a pity that bloggers said that the Mate50 series will most likely be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1 or MediaTek's Tianji 9000 processor, and do not support 5G networks. This is also the biggest and most difficult problem in the Huawei Mate50 series.
Mobile phone case into Huawei's "life-saving straw"?
However, according to the revelations of netizens, Huawei is currently developing a so-called "5G mobile phone case", which can make 4G mobile phones support 5G networks through contact contact. Is this the bottom magic weapon of Huawei's Mate50 series?
As of press time, Huawei officials still have not responded to this matter, if the information is accurate, the discussion of whether the plug-in 5G form can be successful needs to be discussed from the technical side and the user side. From a technical point of view, although the "5G mobile phone case" sounds a bit incredible, it is not difficult to implement. After a simple analysis, it can be found that Huawei's 5G mobile phone case principle is actually similar to the "Apple Skin" released by the iPhone many years ago.
Readers who know a little about Apple's product line should know that the biggest difference between the iPhone and the iPod Touch (MP4 player) of that year is that the former has an independent communication module, which can make calls and use mobile data to access the Internet, but the iPod Touch cannot, and Apple has given it the positioning of an MP4 player.
To this end, at that time, there was a company specifically for the iPod Touch developed a plug-in device, it is similar to the mobile phone case, which has a built-in independent communication module and battery, and iPod Touch can achieve the effect of making calls and mobile Internet access, so that the original price of more than a thousand iPod touch into an iPhone that can call, this "mobile phone case" is called "Apple skin" by foreign netizens.
However, although the "Apple Skin" made the iPod Touch successfully transform into an iPhone by adding a back-button communication module, an 800mAh battery and other functions. However, due to compatibility issues, at that time, this mobile phone case could not support 3G networks, and the call delay was relatively high, and even the function of deleting and forwarding SMS could not be realized. It can be said to be a flashy invention.
Of course, it is not only Apple that has similar products, Motorola has also launched an exclusive 5G plug-in device for its new machine Moto Z3 in 2018 - 5G Moto Mod, upgrading 4G mobile phones to 5G mobile phones. The 5G Moto Mod has a built-in 2000mAh battery, a full 5G modem and antenna inside the module, and with the help of 5G Moto Mod, the Moto Z3 can connect to a 5G network.
But its biggest drawback is that it is too thick, which will make the original lightweight mobile phone become a heavy "brick machine", and according to the feedback of foreign netizens, after bringing 5G Moto Mod, it will make the signal of the mobile phone worse, and the overall experience is not as good as 4G.
Back to the main topic, how does Huawei's mobile phone case achieve 4G mobile phone support 5G network? From the netizens who claim to be Huawei employees in Ku'an, it can be seen that Huawei's 5G mobile phone case will have a built-in 5G RADIO frequency antenna, which is not heavy, so it is unlikely that the battery will be built-in, and the mobile phone needs to be connected through USB to reverse its power supply.
And according to the disassembly diagram on the Internet, Huawei's current 4G mobile phones have reserved the position of 5G RF chips, taking Huawei P50, the reason why it does not support 5G is not the lack of chips, but is cut off from a key component, the RF front-end body acoustic wave (BAW) RF filter. Due to the lack of this BAW filter, the baseband of Huawei's P50 series mobile phones supports 5G, but it does not have the ability to receive and transmit 5G signals from the outside world. From this point of view, perhaps the operation of connecting 5G RF chips through external means can make up for the shortcomings of current Huawei mobile phones.
However, as a rational consumer, I am not optimistic about this alternative for two reasons.
From the perspective of consumers, this "5G mobile phone shell" approach is difficult to meet the expectations of users. At present, thin and portable is the just need of consumers. In order to achieve 5G communication functions, the "5G mobile phone case" must cover 5G baseband chips, 5G radio frequency and other components, as well as batteries, which makes the "5G mobile phone case" inevitably relatively "bulky".
Moreover, the price factor will also affect the user's desire to buy, the mobile phone case does not belong to the mobile phone, but the accessory, which involves the problem of sales pricing. Previously, the price of Apple skin was about 599 yuan, the separate price of Motorola's 5G module was as high as thousands of yuan, and the "5G mobile phone case" covered more core technologies such as 5G radio frequency, the cost was bound to be higher, in the conservative estimate of Huawei's "5G mobile phone case" pricing thousand yuan gear, in order to achieve 5G communication, consumers spend thousands of yuan more is a very big challenge for users.
In addition to HiSilicon, does Huawei have other options?
From a long-term perspective, the solution of external 5G antennas is obviously a helpless move to treat the symptoms rather than the root causes. Although emotionally speaking, we all hope that Huawei can break through the technical difficulties as soon as possible, but the actual environment is still cruel, domestic brands have not yet achieved mass production of 14nm process, even if the OEM process is maturely applied to the flagship model, it is difficult to withstand the market pressure given by other brands.
Fortunately, in China, more and more attention has been paid to the semiconductor industry, and Tsinghua Unigroup is one of the most eye-catching, such as Tsinghua's first 5G chip "Tiger Ben T7510" In half a year, sales have exceeded one million pieces, and for example, the first 6nm process chip under Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui has been officially listed, and the world's first 6nm EUV process 5G Soc chip was born and officially entered mass production. Nowadays, in the commercial products of 5G, the number of Unigroup products has exceeded more than 50 categories. In addition, the company's self-developed 5G module has also been successfully docked with users.
The person in charge of Tsinghua Unigroup said that in fact, in the previous 4G and 3G era, the company did not have any advantages and has always been lagging behind. However, with the mass production of Tiger Ben T7510 in May 2021, it means that the overall level of the world is getting closer. The gap between himself and Huawei is only six months, and continuing to work hard is likely to stand in the first echelon of the development of global 5G chips.
Although the cooperation between Tsinghua Unigroup and Huawei has not yet been heard, it is certain that when Unigroup's products can be recognized by consumers and the market, domestic manufacturers will pay more and more attention to this once unknown small manufacturer. However, although this workaround has certain value, objectively speaking, it has not fundamentally solved Huawei's supply chain problem.
In fact, it is not realistic to completely "Americanize" in the short term, and it also requires the long-term joint efforts of industrial chain enterprises. Once China breaks through the shackles of the core patents of 5G RF chips, it will no longer be difficult for Huawei to recover rapidly in the global market. And the Huawei Mate50 series, which is unlikely to be able to use the 5G network, is more like a tranquilizer, which may be able to further retain more market share and old users, as for how it performs, it can only let time tell us.