Cover news reporter Cai Shiqi
On April 25, Vivo released its latest flagship series of mobile phones X80 and X80 Pro in Shenzhen, and at the key node of the tenth year of the imaging flagship X series, they made a new attempt: the launch of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1 and MediaTek Tianji 9000 dual versions on the "Big Cup" X80 Pro.
This also means that MediaTek is once again challenging Qualcomm's market leadership with the help of high-market share terminal manufacturers.
Vivo's X series entered its tenth year
Blue Factory flagship joins dual-platform "experiment"
The Choice of SoC processors in the Android mobile phone market is nothing more than Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung, because Huawei's HiSilicon can not even supply its own terminal business line, and other mobile phone manufacturers that compete with Huawei are not willing to be restricted, so Qualcomm's market share has further increased. In addition to its own mobile phone business line, Samsung has exported less and less SoCs, and MediaTek has become the only manufacturer that may compete with Qualcomm for mainstream market share.
However, MediaTek's processors have long been regarded as low-end, and there is a gap between performance and Qualcomm's high-end series of each generation, so few flagship mobile phones will carry MediaTek.
Turnaround appeared at the end of 2020, due to Qualcomm's previous generation of high-end processor Snapdragon 888 and the latest Snapdragon 8Gen1 heat control is not good, was once again spat at by users as "fire dragon", high load use process is easy to make the whole machine hit the power consumption wall leading to frequency reduction, and even appeared many users choose to buy mobile phones when preferring the sub-flagship chip Snapdragon 870 Strange phenomenon, which also makes mobile phone manufacturers caught in a dilemma - the use of the most high-end SoC models often can not sell the flagship, However, the configuration of sub-flagship models outside the SoC often does not reflect the highest level of their own.
MediaTek Tianji 9000 once again challenges Qualcomm Snapdragon
The high-end chips of market-leading brands have obvious shortcomings, which also bring opportunities for MediaTek. Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi and other high-shipment mobile phone brands may also realize that the use of a single platform may make some consumers "retreat to the second" of flagship models, so under the dual impetus of market demand and upstream chip parties, they have launched Qualcomm and MediaTek dual-platform versions on recent flagship models.
Vivo released the X70 series in September last year, which is the "medium cup", "large cup" and "super cup" three models in turn to choose MediaTek Tianji 1200, Samsung Exynos 1080, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus, plus the three models originally on the lens module collocation is different, so the characteristics of different SoCs can not be directly compared. This time vivo's X80 is equipped with MediaTek MediaTek Tianji 9000, and X80 Pro has launched two versions of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1 and MediaTek Tianji 9000 for the first time, in addition to SoC, other specifications are exactly the same, which is actually controlling variables, so that flagship models can meet the needs of different consumers.
Self-developed core encounters a new architecture
After Apple has made major breakthroughs in mobile platforms and PC platforms by relying on self-developed chips, self-developed chips are becoming the common choice of technology manufacturers, and the design of large and small cores has recently become a mainstream solution, and new products on mobile platforms and PC platforms use this architecture.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1 and MediaTek Tianji 9000 both use Armv9 architecture chips, that is, "large and small core" design, large cores focus on extreme performance, and small energy-efficient cores are responsible for handling low-power tasks, which can better control the overall power consumption of SoC.
In fact, Apple's M series chips, as well as Intel's Core 12 belt processing, have also adopted large and small cores, which has brought about a significant increase in production efficiency, and AMD's large and small core architecture is also said to be available.
The self-developed core and the new SoC form a synergy
Different from the desktop processor, the mobile phone because the SoC is also integrated gpu, which leads to the image processing is also prone to the same image processing with the same chip, the same lens module of the mobile phone imaging effect, so the mobile phone manufacturers began to develop their own image chip to achieve differentiation.
In 2021, the vivo X70 series is equipped with self-developed image chip V1, creating a precedent of "dual core". This year, the X80 series is equipped with the self-developed chip V1+, which leads the second-generation dual-core flagship standard, taking into account imagery and performance, and also uses computing power in the field of performance and display, which is equivalent to adding its own data processing unit in addition to the SoC.
Because this time it is equipped with qualcomm and MediaTek dual platforms, the compatibility of self-developed chips is facing a greater test. Vivo said that V1+ has realized the multi-platform dual-core adaptation of all models in the X80 series, and through the dual-core coordination of V1+ and SoC, it stimulates the full energy and potential of SoC, so that "the fire is more calm" and "the calm is more efficient".
In the first half of the year, there are not many SoCs available for Android flagship mobile phones, and the blue factory has not launched a "super cup" this time, and each one is waiting for a better high-end SoC to come out, and the new flagship will be launched to drive consumers to change their willingness to change machines stronger.