What is a "flagship phone"?
When we spoke of "flagship phones" years ago, we usually referred to the strongest and most expensive single model of each brand. Sometimes, the term may even refer specifically to the device that has been "recognized" by everyone for a certain period of time.
This is not surprising, after all, in the environment where non-smart machines were popular, the vast majority of brands pursued "technology to change shells", so it is difficult to have configuration differences in the vast majority of models. In contrast, a very small number of products with higher R&D budgets and indeed differentiation in experience are naturally easy to become recognized "flagship machine emperors".
However, this situation has soon changed with the popularity of smart phones, especially the rise of domestic mobile phone manufacturers. A few years ago, I could see the release of several domestic "flagship mobile phones" almost every month. In front of the name of "flagship", sometimes it is even prefixed with various prefixes, such as "youth flagship", "thousand yuan flagship", "entry flagship", and even "100 yuan flagship".
However, with the big wave of the mobile phone industry in recent years, the above phenomenon of "flagship" running all over the ground has basically ceased to exist. However, the integration industry has not returned to the past era of only one or two "flagships".
The "flagship phone" is no longer just a unique solution, but is becoming more and more diverse
On the evening of April 11, 2022, Vivo held the first "flagship product launch" of the year. However, this time they launched not only one device, but brought the folding screen flagship X Fold and the large-screen flagship X Note in one go, two top products with completely different forms.
Which of these two models is more "flagship"? To be honest, there is no distinction between them, because the two have their own highlights in terms of product form, functional concept, or detailed configuration.
With its aerospace-grade precision hinge structure, the X Fold has become the industry's large-size folding screen model with the best crease and durability solution, and is also the largest image configuration. The X Note is not only a rare 7-inch large-screen mobile phone in the industry, but also relies on the built-in self-developed V1 image chip and the luxurious ZEISS quad camera system, which fills many gaps in the current "large-screen equipment" in the mobile phone industry in many aspects such as display effect and image capabilities.
However, what the X Fold and X Note represent is actually a very noteworthy phenomenon. That is, the "flagship phone" is really no longer limited to the only model or configuration, but has a diversified subdivision development trend. And this phenomenon is not unique to vivo, but in recent years, it has become a major change that has swept the entire mobile phone industry.
Video, business, games, folding screens... "flagship phones" are in full bloom
How subdivided are today's "flagship phones"? Let's give a few simple examples, I think you can understand.
For example, in the field of traditional bar flagship mobile phones, we can now see both large-screen and business-oriented products such as vivo X Note, as well as "small steel cannons" such as Xiaomi 12, which are small in size and can still provide high performance in small size, and "image flagships" such as Nubia Z40 Pro and Xiaomi 11 Ultra, which are obviously designed for the ultimate photo and recording experience.
For example, in response to the needs of gamers, the "flagship game mobile phone" represented by Red Devil, Black Shark, Lenovo Savior and Asus ROG has also been recognized by more and more consumers in recent years. Compared with other flagship mobile phones, these top products for gaming are not only piled up on heat dissipation, but also often have unique features in terms of body structure, control mode, and charging experience.
In addition, in the flagship mobile phone new products in 2022, "security" has also become one of the high-profile technological innovation directions. For example, Snapdragon 8 supports chip-level security features, combined with honor Magic V's built-in independent security memory chip and dual TEE security system, the user's data security and payment security will be protected by the flagship security of dual insurance.
In the vivo X Note and X Fold just released a few days ago, vivo used the Snapdragon 8 security processing unit for the first time to enhance high-security and high-security security applications. Snapdragon 8 brings exclusive SPU chip-level security and privacy protection to vivo X Fold and X Note, with a full range of hardware and software security protection capabilities. This also represents the latest direction of the smartphone industry in the privacy system, secure encryption, application of real-time risk prevention and other functions.
Of course, not to mention, since the mass production of the first batch of folding screen devices in 2019, with the passage of time, we can now see more and more "folding screen flagships" with different forms and different functional emphases. There is the OPPO Find N designed for one-handed holding, there is the honor magic V with multiple enhancement chips and quite distinctive functions, and the vivo X Fold, which is mentioned earlier and is particularly strong in image and screen crease control.
The reason behind the "flagship mobile phone" market segment of Chinese brands is not simple
Yes, it is not difficult to find from the above "flagship mobile phones" with different forms and different functional orientations that they are almost all masterpieces of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. Looking at the entire mobile phone industry, in recent years, these flagship mobile phones with different forms and characteristics have also accounted for the vast majority of excellent products from Chinese brands.
The rise of "Original God" has put forward higher requirements for the performance design of flagship mobile phones
Why is that? On the one hand, the current quality of the mainland's mobile network construction and the development of the mobile Internet industry itself are among the best in the world. This means that many of the latest related technologies will be preferentially adopted and reflected in the domestic network environment, such as 5G VoNR calls, high-quality mobile games, and various high-quality online videos, which are now in full swing in the domestic market. This also creates conditions for all kinds of "flagship mobile phones" to give full play to their advantages.
On the other hand, from the current situation of the mobile phone market, Chinese brands have basically occupied the top few in various sales lists. However, at the same time, in the sales of single models, especially single flagship models, there is still an objective gap between domestic brands and overseas manufacturers. In layman's terms, although domestic mobile phones sell more, most of them still rely on "machine sea tactics", and there is still a lot of room for improvement in the sales of single models, especially single high-end models.
In such a situation, investing more R& D energy in high-end product lines, striving to achieve a breakthrough in brand positioning and market influence in the flagship market through segmented product positioning, has naturally become the consensus of major domestic mobile phone manufacturers. In this process, these aspiring Chinese mobile phone brands have received a powerful help.
Why do flagship phones choose Snapdragon? Because there are advantages that are difficult to ignore
Looking at the influential flagship mobile phone segments in the past two or three years, you will find that they have almost "invariably" chosen Qualcomm's top Snapdragon mobile platform. Why is that? This is no coincidence.
The Snapdragon 8 makes the Black Shark 5 Pro's performance stand out
First of all, the reason why a product can be called a "flagship", the top performance is of course the most basic element. In the past few years, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 series mobile platform has also firmly occupied the throne of the strongest performance of Android mobile phones. Taking the latest Snapdragon 8 as an example, on flagship game phones such as Black Shark 5 Pro and Red Devil 7 Pro, it has fully demonstrated the performance potential of significantly higher than other competitors, which not only provides players with sufficient "combat power", but also allows flagship e-sports equipment to have more "confidence".
Secondly, as we mentioned earlier, domestic mobile phone manufacturers are generally pursuing differentiated product design. But what you may not realize is that the hardware design of the mobile platform itself can sometimes become a key obstacle to whether "differentiation" can be achieved. For example, looking at the imaging flagship model launched by a brand some time ago, it will be found that only the model equipped with the Snapdragon mobile platform is equipped with the manufacturer's self-developed image chip. And this, obviously, will bring about a difference in user experience.
Part of the Snapdragon Gaming Partner lineup
Not only that, the user experience of a mobile phone is good or not, in addition to the basic hardware performance, the adaptation of the software level is also crucial. For Qualcomm, the Snapdragon mobile platform has a self-developed Adreno GPU architecture and a self-developed Hexagon DSP, which means that without the hand of ARM, it can achieve in-depth cooperation and drive optimization with major mainstream 3D engines, game developers, and AI solution providers. These optimizations can be directly adopted by mobile phone manufacturers to improve the game performance, software compatibility, and AI processing efficiency of flagship products.
In fact, if you pay attention to some flagship mobile phones listed this year, you will find that in these new products of several brands this year, models based on the Snapdragon mobile platform tend to have a more comprehensive performance in terms of functionality.
For example, in several new mobile phone series of multiple brands this year, only models based on the Snapdragon mobile platform have more complete AI mobile video optimization functions, while based on other SoC products, these functions are often missing.
For example, everyone knows that the current smart phone "high brush screen" will be more power-consuming, and LTPO2.0 technology that can achieve automatic multi-segment adjustment of the screen refresh rate can balance the screen power consumption and display effect very well, but I don't know if you have found that so far, there are only models based on the Snapdragon mobile platform to support LTPO screen features - and some mobile phones that use other platforms, even if the screen hardware is exactly the same, can not fully support the variable refresh rate features.
In addition, although many chip manufacturers now have joint mobile phone manufacturers to carry out in-depth development of mobile platforms, throughout these "custom chips", most of them are only to strengthen AI computing power, or debug shallow work for a few games. In contrast, vivo's customized SPU security features based on the new Snapdragon 8 platform, implemented on X Note and X Fold, show the differences in the development difficulty and software adaptation of different platforms, and the support of upstream manufacturers.
Finally, we have to point out that consumers often expect a better experience for "flagship mobile phones", but also hope that such products have longer-term support and can be used for a longer period of time. Qualcomm's advantage in this regard is significantly stronger than that of competitors. Remember that they made it clear a few years ago that they would work with Google to ensure at least four years of Android major version updates for their high-end mobile platforms.
Not to mention that looking at today's mobile phone market will find that in some brand new product lines, often only new products based on the Snapdragon platform will be listed with a new version of the system and UI, while new products based on other platforms even appear to be listed later, but also use the old version of the system.
Obviously, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion from the above information. That is, for these aspiring Chinese mobile phone manufacturers today, choosing to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform in the top flagship product line is not only because of its performance and technical advantages, but even in order to achieve product differentiation and ensure the long-term experience of users, and "have to" make a choice.
【Some of the pictures in this article are from the network】