Wen | Yuyu
Editor| Deng Hao
The meaning of the existence of folding screen mobile phones, what is it?
To some extent, the re-escalation of the trend of "device integration" can be regarded as an answer.
Throughout history, a palm-sized electronic device has included the functions provided by 10 years of MP3, MP4, camera, television, game console, e-book and other devices.
Interestingly, the development of straight mobile phones has been more than ten years, in recent years, mobile phone manufacturers have been more and more energetic on the track of full screen - iPhone bangs are getting smaller and smaller, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have launched curved screens, waterdrop screens, digging screens and even under-screen cameras and other technologies, all hope in a limited size, to make more space for the screen.
Behind it, it is actually the demand for large screens that are constantly spawned by the human eye. The so-called "folding" is essentially a solution that manufacturers continue to pursue between the needs of large screens and the portability of equipment. But in fact, the difference between various schemes for screen area is only about one percent. Even if consumers perceive this change, it is difficult to have a truly new experience.
Until the advent of folding screen phones, smartphones were able to integrate a blockbuster device - tablets.
In the American drama "Westworld", a communication tool that can be expanded on multiple screens, it not only takes into account the convenience, but also breaks through the size of the palm, and the screen is directly enlarged several times after unfolding. This kind of future terminal, which is still stuck in the human imagination, has undoubtedly provided a better way for the presentation of massive information in the 5G era.
Today, when the mobile phone form has not been "qualitatively changed" for a long time, the emergence of folding screens is not only an innovation in product form, but also a new upgrade in software interaction. As the first folding screen mobile phone, what kind of "sincerity" and "character" are shown is also worth playing.
The domestic folding screen team, qi
Folding screen mobile phones are coming at a speed that is visible to the naked eye.
IDC data shows that the worldwide shipments of folding screen mobile phones increased from 1.947 million units in 2020 to 7.1 million units in 2021, an increase of 260% year-on-year.
It is a new wind for mobile phone manufacturers who are caught in the inner volume, as well as consumers who are "aesthetic fatigue" in the inner volume.
Since Samsung took the lead in launching the first mass-produced folding screen phone Galaxy Fold in 2019, mobile phone manufacturers have followed suit. Domestic mobile phone manufacturers, including Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and Honor, have all unveiled their first or even second folding screen mobile phones in 2021.
However, the first folding screen mobile phones of various brands have not yet been able to make most consumers really pay. IDC data shows that in 2021, the global shipment of folding screen mobile phones will be about 7.1 million, accounting for only 0.5% of the global smartphones, and the annual shipment of folding screen mobile phones in China will be 1.5 million, accounting for the same 0.5%.
Lin Zhi, chief analyst of Wit Display, said that in 2022, the shipments of folding screen mobile phones planned by mainstream brand mobile phone manufacturers are at the level of one million, and the folding screen mobile phone market will usher in a reversal year.
What are the mainstream consumers who have not moved before waiting for?
In fact, since the launch of the folding screen mobile phone, most of the reviews of new products in the market have revolved around a main tone - there are progress, but not mature enough.
From the perspective of the screen, only the internal and external screens have a unified high quality, as well as the size ratio that meets the user's habits, so as not to bring an obvious "sense of separation" to most users who switch from the direct-faced screen mobile phone.
At the same time, the thickness also restricts the configuration of some mobile phone manufacturers in terms of performance, including less use of high-frequency fast charging, large-capacity batteries, high-parameter cameras and so on.
From weight, thickness, crease, battery life, to after-sales and ecology, a series of "imperfections" have made many consumers think that the existing folding screen mobile phone is not enough to support the high price of about 10,000 yuan.
Vivo, as the last domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturer to launch the first folding screen mobile phone brand, finally came with vivo X Fold on April 11.
What the outside world is looking forward to is: after a long time of polishing, has Vivo made a big move?
Come prepared
In fact, vivo is one of the earliest manufacturers involved in the development of folding screens.
In December 2018, some media asked Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, how to view folding screen mobile phones. At that time, Samsung showed a folding screen prototype, and Google also announced that it would provide software support for folding screen mobile phones. For the folding screen that may have to be fired at that time, Hu Baishan was not optimistic.
He thought at the time that some manufacturers would make small batches of folding screens in 2019, but there would be no large number of products to follow. "The first technology cannot have obvious defects, and the second is to bring real use value to consumers." In addition, it is related to the price, and the cost cannot be reduced. ”
The development of folding screen mobile phones in the following years also confirmed Hu Baishan's prediction at that time. He was also very frank at that time that Vivo has always had research and development and tracking on the folding screen, and also has a special team and patent layout, but it has never found a closer "perfect" option in the known scheme.
Huang Tao, vice president of vivo X products, also mentioned this matter on Weibo recently, and the team has deliberated dozens of versions of the plan in four years, constantly denying itself, "We can't be in a hurry, it is easy to forget the original intention and mess up the scale."
Where is the line for continuous improvement? The team itself does not preset boundaries, but Jia Jingdong, vice president of the vivo brand, believes that at least it is necessary to impress itself.
The vivo X Fold, which met this standard, eventually appeared.
As the most important "façade" of folding screen mobile phones, vivo X Fold's internal and external screens have achieved 120Hz high brushing, which not only brings a more coherent feeling to the dual-screen switching, but also stands in the first echelon in terms of refresh rate indicators.
In terms of size, vivo X Fold uses a 6.53-inch, 21:9 aspect ratio external screen, and an 8-inch, 4:3.55 aspect ratio inner screen, which is in line with the user habits of the direct-faced screen while achieving one of the largest inner screens in the industry.
The hinge design is undoubtedly one of the "life doors" of folding screen mobile phones. It is understood that the hinge used by vivo X Fold this time integrates the advantages of folding screen mobile phones on the market and also comes up with its own innovation.
Just the right sense of damping, can support 60-120 degree hover, six aerospace grade materials, Rheinland Folding certification of 300,000 bending tests (about 200,000 times existing products in the industry), are the vivo X Fold hinges have the ability and experience.
Behind this, vivo invested far more than 3 times the number of people in the straight-panel mobile phone for research and development, before and after the time of more than 12 months, after the iteration of 5 generations of solutions, and finally came up with a set of "can play" hinge solutions that look at the current folding screen mobile phone market.
In some products can not appear, to the compression and durability of the characteristics of UTT glass, in vivo X Fold also appeared, with the industry's smallest water droplet radius (2.3 mm, the industry common 3 mm), and floating zirconium alloy plate design, in the screen stretch, can play an upward role in supporting the screen dent, towards the "completely flat" screen is also a little closer.
In terms of performance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SPU custom flagship chip used by vivo X Fold uses the most advanced 4nm process process, and is also the first mobile phone manufacturer in the world to jointly develop SPU (secure processing unit) with Qualcomm.
The significance of this deep customization is to release the capabilities of Snapdragon 8 in terms of security protection, obtain stronger security performance than external security chips, and the "3D ultra-sound screen fingerprint recognition" equipped with both internal and external screens makes this security performance can be achieved on a more convenient basis.
Huang Tao said that the realization of screen fingerprints on the folding screen, involving materials, acoustics and structure, is very complicated, the team even thought about giving up, but in the end, after more than a hundred tests, a copper sheet of a specific thickness was selected as an intermediate between the fingerprint film group and the titanium alloy structure of the screen, increasing the unlocking speed by nearly 40%, while improving the unlocking success rate of wet hands or oil hands.
At the software level, the lack of use scenarios is one of the pain points of folding screen mobile phones in the past.
The hoverable hinge design of the vivo X Fold is equivalent to adding more forms between the two forms of closure and unfolding, and the playability is also improved. Software such as amber scanning, role-splitting recording, L-shaped hover video calls, and more applications for the folding screen mobile phone ecology can fully release the functions on this model.
It is worth mentioning that there is also battery life, because the large-screen display puts forward higher requirements for endurance, vivo also came up with its own "housekeeping skills" - 4600mAh long-distance large battery, the industry's first 50W unlimited flash charge and 66W wired flash charge, enough to support continuous 12 hours of video conferencing and 8 hours of large-scale games.
On the whole, this "late" folding screen mobile phone presents vivo's uncompromising and extreme pursuit of user experience.
About the high end
When the smartphone industry enters the stock stage, a "breakthrough" around the high-end brand is unfolded in the domestic mobile phone queue.
Due to the extremely high requirements for software systems and hardware manufacturing, folding screen mobile phones that have been predicted as "the next stage of mobile phone form" are not only a symbol of technical strength for mobile phone manufacturers, but also a pass to knock on the high-end door.
From the effect point of view, vivo X Fold integrates a number of industry-leading technologies, and the questions that the market cares about such as hinge durability and convenience, screen creases, chip performance, and battery life have been well answered.
To some extent, this is vivo's understanding of high-end mobile phones, that is, the product is the first! Only when the product experience is done well, users will be willing to pay for it.
Vivo's way of playing in the high-end mobile phone market is to maintain its competitiveness in various price segments through continuous optimization of the product series matrix. This set of playing methods is actually very simple, through a new exploration of mobile phone technology and experience, to bring consumers a more efficient, convenient and creative mobile phone experience.
The product is the cause, the brand is the fruit, the product is done well, and the fruit comes from the water to the water.
Data from third-party research agency Counterpoint shows that Vivo's market share in the $500-599 range increased from 10% in September 2020 to 20% in September 2021, doubling year-on-year. According to vivo's official data, in the third quarter of 2021, its high-end mobile phone market share of more than 4,000 yuan reached the top three in the industry.
Under the fierce attack of the iPhone on China's high-end mobile phone market, this achievement is not easy, behind which vivo started from the early under-screen fingerprint and lifting camera, and later launched ZEISS imaging and self-developed V1 chip.
The results of the stage allow vivo to rhythmically pile up the "city fortress" in the field of high-end mobile phones.
In the past product system, the vivo X digital flagship series represents the positioning of the professional image flagship, the vivo X Fold released this time is positioned in the professional folding flagship, and the vivo X Note is positioned as the large-screen business flagship. Specifically, unlike the image and aesthetic appearance that emphasizes the ultimate professionalism, vivo X Fold and vivo X Note pay more attention to the needs of business people.
This is also the embodiment of the change in vivo's strategy in the field of high-end mobile phones.
In the past for a long time, vivo's product portfolio has not been able to cover the high-end business part of the population well, and this is actually a customer group that cannot be ignored for various brand manufacturers who want to do high-end mobile phones, especially folding screen mobile phones.
Under the fast-paced working state and the nature of the overall work, the business crowd often needs mobile portable devices that can provide privacy protection, high efficiency, long battery life and stability, and the appearance that is more in line with identity positioning is naturally one of the important considerations.
At the same time, considering that the intake of various types of information occupies a large part of the work content of high-end business people, convenient functions such as large-screen reading, multi-task split-screen, and fast screen projection are all required capabilities for corresponding equipment.
Jia Jingdong said before the official release of the vivo X Fold that the reason why this product is called "Mr. Big" is because of the large size and professionalism, and the other is because it is suitable for people who use their brains and do big things.
Qualcomm SPU chip-level security protection level, efficient and stable device performance under the first decimal program, large-capacity battery and high-power charging capability, excellent internal and external screen size... In more specific scenarios, this device can provide a friendlier choice for business people who have needs in common scenarios such as video conferencing, various report previews, collaborative office and stock trading.
While discussing the future form of smart phones, it does not matter whether folding screens can become a more mainstream direction. Importantly, the vivo X Fold, which is closer to perfect and balanced in this new form, does offer a better option for some people.
A folded future begins.