Text / Xiao Ji looks at the data
Folding is becoming a word that the smartphone industry cannot avoid. With the official release of the vivo X Fold, the mainstream mobile phone manufacturers in the Android camp have fully entered the era of folding screens.
"For just need, of course, it is hoped that the more manufacturers who do folding screens, the better, and the more rolls the better." A consulting firm AD Zhao Xiaocui told this writer that the reason why he first started using a folding screen mobile phone was very simple, one was to try it out, and the other was to use foreign objects to subtly strengthen his identity label - similar to choosing to buy Tesla Model 3 as the second car at home.
"It's a little trick of creating people." Zhao Xiaocui laughed at himself that in his industry, the personal image and professional ability to walk at the forefront of the times are equally important. However, "True Fragrance" arrived late, and Zhao Xiaocui, who was conquered by the Tesla driving experience, is now also conquered by the folding screen mobile phone.
According to him, his folding-screen phone now has more screen usage than another straight-panel phone. For a senior worker who needs to travel frequently, read industry research reports and team solutions for a long time, and pay attention to financial market dynamics and even gossip news, a mobile device with higher display density and higher functional integration can indeed bring a better use experience.
"And the heavy office iPad is still no substitute for the notebook, and the folding screen mobile phone is more than enough for me if it is light." Zhao Xiaocui, who has become a loyal user of folding screen mobile phones, told the author that the next change of equipment will definitely give priority to changing the folding screen, after all, the psychological decision-making cost between the same device and opening another device is completely different.
In a market operation exchange group established by headhunting, a senior worker of a large factory told the author that he is now also using the folding screen as the main mobile phone: "Although the folding screen still has various shortcomings, it is no longer necessary to return to the straight board machine." ”
When an item is detached from the usage scenario and the user, there is nothing to discuss. For people like me, who allocate more screen usage time to gaming entertainment, folding screens are certainly not a "better" choice than bar-panel pcs.
The function, form and price of the folding screen are also destined to be inherently more suitable for business scenarios. The vivo X Fold released on April 11 positions itself as a high-end business flagship, which can be said to be an accurate insight into market demand, which is a "two-way rush" between users and manufacturers.
To make products, the accumulation of technology is of course very important, but what is more important is to think clearly that you want to help "who" to solve the problem. Professionalism is hidden in precise positioning, and no matter how good the shoes are, they are not fit.
Vivo clearly understands this user-oriented approach. As Huang Tao, its vice president of products, said: "Business should talk about strategy and consider business, but we are not just for business." Products made purely for business will not have a soul and will not impress anyone. ”
To make a product, we must have the user in mind and think what the user thinks.
01. Who is using the folding screen?
Judging from the existing user portraits of folding screen mobile phones, we can simply and rudely divide them into two types.
The first is the price-insensitive technology early adopters, for whom the practicality of the phone is not important, what is important is the freshness and label of the technology experience leader, who is also the main user of the first generation of folding screen mobile phones.
A Galaxy Fold user said in an interview: "The moment I unfolded the screen, I felt that I was right to buy it." However, the young interviewee also said that he would not choose the folding screen as his main machine, "compared with the straight flagship, the folding screen still has a long way to go."
The second is to choose to buy because of the real needs, for them the most core use scenarios of folding screen mobile phones are office, text reading and short and medium video. Therefore, display effects (resolution, brightness, color gamut), hinged feel (related to hover and office), screen proportions and software adaptation (portable multi-task split screen experience) are important concerns for them when choosing a folding screen phone.
It is not difficult to see that the second type of consumer is the one who supports the scale of the folding screen mobile phone market. What makes them hesitate or dissatisfied is that the maturity and reliability of the product are not high. Such as creases, abnormal noise, battery life, service life, maintenance costs... Objectively speaking, these problems exist, but some consumers are satisfied with the form, which overwhelms these dissatisfactions.
To make more potential users willing to buy and use folding screen mobile phones, these problems can not be escaped. This may also be the reason why vivo, which began to pre-research folding screen products four years ago, has only launched the first folding screen mobile phone X Fold - good food is never afraid of late.
2. Folding screen 2.0 era
In the mobile phone industry, vivo has always performed a very "duty", rarely showy marketing. But this does not mean that it is a very Buddhist manufacturer, on the contrary, it has been very rolled in the product.
From the world's thinnest fuselage to the industry's first HiFi chip implantation, and then to the industry's first 2K screen, Android's first OIS, periscope camera, self-developed image chip and image algorithm... Vivo has created a high-quality series of products with rich R & D investment, and the high-quality series of products has won the reputation of consumers, and the continuous fermentation of word-of-mouth has brought market recognition.
According to Counterpoint data, at the end of 2021, in the price segment of 4,000-5,000 yuan in the Chinese market, Vivo ranked first with a market share of 24.1%, completely stabilizing the high-end market.
As the first folding screen mobile phone of the "product volume king" Vivo, the X Fold is obviously the stepping stone used to knock on the door of the high-end market - so its launch will be so prudent. The reputation of consumers is irreversible, and it is not vivo's style to rush out products to occupy the ecological niche simply in order to improve the product layout.
Once launched, vivo X Fold announced the opening of the folding screen 2.0 era with a non-low-key product force. Whether this sentence is crazy or not has yet to be tested by the market, but at present, from the perspective of various configurations, X Fold does intuitively feel vivo's intransigence in products.
Limited by the cost and price of reasons, many folding screens will make trade-offs in product performance, which is beyond reproach.
It's just that vivo "arrogantly" said, "There is no trade-off, I want it all", and did not "shrink" the flagship performance that should be had because of the change in form. Some pragmatism is about abandoning uselessness, while others are about pursuing usefulness, which is just a difference in philosophy and methodology between brands.
If we say the parameters and process data of various parts, it may make most ordinary consumers look confused. The advantage of the vivo X Fold is not in the stacking of materials, so we still return to the core use scenario of the folding screen mobile phone to illustrate the extreme and necessity of the configuration.
The first is the screen, which is related to the display effect.
Vivo X Fold both inside and outside the dual screens are equipped with flagship configurations (120Hz high brush, E5 luminescent material, Samsung diamond arrangement), which makes the phone will not have a strong sense of separation when switching the use form. In terms of external screen size, X Fold is also consistent with the mainstream straight board flagship, and the use of the outer screen alone has an excellent body feeling, and there is no need to match an additional straight phone. On the inner screen, vivo X Fold creates a crease optimization solution through the use of three major technologies such as floating midplane, which not only makes the screen crease look shallower, but also more durable, and will not be damaged by multiple folds.
The second is hinging, which is about the folding experience.
The extremely expensive aerospace-grade material and the floating wing innovative design make the hinge durable and reliable – which also makes the vivo X Fold the world's first folding screen phone to pass the Rheinland 300,000 folding worry-free certification. Multi-angle stable hover, smooth feel without noise, truly hands-free, video/viewing/reading/input experience is good.
Based on vivo's own professional advantages in imagery, the form of X Fold exhibits more innovative shooting methods, which are very playable while meeting the needs of high-quality images.
And, of course, there's the smart office suite built into the phone.
Comes with the free, professional native scanning tool Amber Scan, which can be interconnected with The Windows or Mac side to achieve a quantum suite that synchronizes cross-screen offices, native App atomic notes, a collection of notes, to-do, and document functions in one, and the innovative interactive mode is very suitable for operation on mobile devices.
As for the "3D ultrasonic dual screen fingerprint" equipped with both the internal and external screens, the large-capacity battery and fast charging with ultra-long endurance, the top chip and the security architecture of the thousand mirrors to ensure privacy, etc., it is not unfolded one by one, and it can only be said that the conference is full of highlights. The X Fold does represent vivo's understanding of high-end business mobile phones - that is, through a new exploration of mobile phone technology and experience, it brings consumers a more efficient, convenient and creative mobile phone experience.
At a time when materials and other technologies have not yet made leapfrog progress, this is indeed a "more mature and more professional folding screen true flagship".
3. Use foresight to transcend the unseen
In fact, looking at the development process of folding screen mobile phones, it is not difficult to find that it is quite similar to the development process of new energy vehicles. Taking Tesla as an example, it first came out of the sports car to occupy the top of the mountain (folding screen mobile phone concept products), then out of the S type to seize more than 70,000 US dollars luxury car market (the first generation of folding screen mobile phones), and then out of the X type to build a formal differentiation (the second generation of stacked screen mobile phone horizontal screen gradually occupied the mainstream), and finally out of the Model 3 blood wash BMW three series of this level of the market, supporting millions of sales.
We can't assert that in the category of folding screen mobile phones, vivo X Fold can become that "Model 3". But we believe that a brand that can use foresight to surpass the unseen will definitely look up at the stars while being down-to-earth and step-by-step.
The control of future technologies, the application of current technologies, and consumer insights are indispensable and equally important. And this is exactly what Vivo is good at.