On April 28, 2022, Huawei officially released its new folding flagship Huawei Mate Xs 2.
As the fifth folding flagship released by Huawei, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 was unveiled. It shines in folding, hardware, interaction and ecology. Ultra-thin, ultra-flat, and ultra-reliable have become the biggest selling points of Huawei Mate Xs 2, providing consumers with a completely different "folding new experience".
Three years and five generations, the "flagship temperament" is precisely grasped
A mobile phone, if you want to find a balance between "technology" and "aesthetics", it is difficult to have an end. Since Huawei entered the "folding screen" track in 2019, it has continuously overcome difficulties and continuously corrected the balance point called "perfect" with the frequency of releasing five models in three years.
Today's achievements are better than foresight. When the folding screen mobile phone is far from forming a scale, Huawei has opened the "break mode" when aiming at the track. Huawei, which has been making great progress all the way, has continuously developed new technologies, upgraded software and hardware configurations, and optimized user experience, so as to have half of the market share today.
According to the "2021 China Folding Screen Mobile Phone Market Research Report" released by IDC last year, it is mentioned that folding screen mobile phones have about 1.5 million units shipped out of the factory in the whole year, accounting for only 0.5% of the domestic smartphone share. Before it was popularized, its positioning was more like the "super run" in mobile phones, which was the most intuitive embodiment of the soft and hard strength of various mobile phone manufacturers. Huawei's first step opened up the horizon for the followers, and they all went down, everyone collected firewood, and the heat was high, so that the international market had high expectations for the folding screen category. In the market research institute Counterpoint Research released a folding screen mobile phone research report pointed out that in 2021 folding screen mobile phone shipments are about 3 times that of the previous year, and next year this value will be raised to 10 times.
Behind the high growth, there is also an increasing demand from users. To meet the portable and one-handed good experience, the current conventional size is close to the limit, and blindly enlarging the screen will only lose the "balance". Seemingly unsolvable problems, until they are cleverly broken through by "folding".
In 2019, Huawei began its dream journey with its folding screen debut Huawei Mate X. While exploring, innovating, and breaking through, Huawei has achieved a domestic market share of nearly 50% in this category in three years, and formed an industry gold line standard of "unfolding without creases and closing without gaps".
Behind the right to speak, there is technical self-confidence. Huawei is well aware that folding screen mobile phones are the embodiment of technology collection, and after continuous self-competition and breakthroughs, they are firmly above the "golden line", so that each new product released has a flagship temperament with both technology and aesthetics.
"The three armed forces will meet the division", the core technology draws the "golden line" of the industry
The most difficult pass of folding screen mobile phones lies in the hinge. Huawei has not stopped innovating and optimizing this component, and is still investing in research and development at any cost.
In 2019, Huawei Mate X, which uses mature folding technology, let users taste the fresh. The following year, Huawei Shunshi applied zirconium-based liquid metal to the second-generation flagship Huawei Mate Xs, greatly improving the durability of the hinge. At that time, Huawei, which had not yet met its opponents, did not have time to stop, but accelerated its pace, hoping to overcome the two congenital problems of closed gaps and unfolded creases in the "inward folding technology" as soon as possible.
In 2021, after a long period of technical research by the hinge design experts, the "double spin water drop hinge" turned out to be a new one, allowing the third-generation flagship Huawei Mate X2 to form a waterdrop-style screen space at the bend, which not only solved the problem of the gap in the fuselage in the folded state, but also smoothed the crease to the greatest extent, so that consumers have a new understanding of "seamless inversion"! At the end of the year alone, Huawei once again exerted its efforts to use the new generation of "teardrop hinges" on the new P50 Pocket. At this time, Huawei has achieved "internal folding, external folding, and vertical" three-service division.
In addition to the hinge, the folding screen with high cost and low yield rate is the second hurdle. Relevant industry insiders revealed that the domestic OLED panel yield is only 80%, the curved screen is not even 50%, and the folding screen with a higher difficulty coefficient is directly difficult for ordinary manufacturers to look back. After all, creating a screen that can withstand tens of thousands of folds and squeezes is still a great challenge for every department involved in the link.
After passing these two levels, an extremely barren APP ecology appeared in front of us. The folding screen mobile phone is small, and the massive software is completely unprepared to meet "new friends". If there is no hardware and software to cooperate, the innovation of "folding for the sake of folding" is only a short-lived "new toy".
What Huawei has to do from the beginning is more than "big". According to insiders, in the first generation of folding screen mobile phone Huawei Mate X, it has paid great attention to the improvement of information interaction efficiency, and optimized APP ecological adaptation through parallel vision, smart multi-window and other functions.
It can be said that every small step Huawei takes in the folding screen track illuminates an unexplored land for latecomers. When others seem to be getting better, what kind of surprises will the Huawei Mate Xs 2 have when they return?
Stunning debut, the new flagship is full of cutting-edge "black technology"
The newly debuted Huawei Mate Xs 2 is only 255g light, and the three-dimensional microfiber process has achieved a weight comparable to that of a straight-board mobile phone. In order to increase toughness and strength while reducing weight, Huawei has made a bold attempt, the back cover is made of ultra-light glass fiber commonly used in the aviation field, the screen support structure uses aviation-grade titanium alloy, and the hinge also uses Huawei's self-developed formula of ultra-light super-strong steel, the configuration can be described as "luxury".
In addition to being flexible and lightweight, the "pollen" people are most concerned about the hinge. Due to the unique folding design, Huawei adopts the industry's first double-rotor eagle wing hinge design. This design realizes an ultra-flat folding screen state, after closing, the hinge and the screen fit more closely, the center of the circle is coaxial, the integration is retracted, and there is no difference; after unfolding, the screen is flat as a mirror.
The fuselage is just the right size, with a 19:9 folding ratio, which maintains the comfort of the hand as always. When unfolded, it has a 7.8-inch ultra-high definition screen with resolutions up to 2480×2200. It is worth saying that with the anti-reflective nano-optical coating, the reflectivity is effectively reduced, and it can be seen really even in the sun.
The software ecology has been further improved, equipped with the first adaptive UI engine, which has achieved 100% large-screen adaptation in Top 300 applications and 90% large-screen adaptation in Top 2000 applications. In fact, Huawei has been committed to sharing and cooperating with developers around the world, promoting the construction of a folding screen application ecosystem, and continuously improving the user experience. To some extent, Huawei provides the development framework and design experience for the track in terms of application ecology and operation interaction.
In terms of user experience, the smart split-screen function is still maintained, realizing the parallel operation of the two applications and improving efficiency. On the basis of the original, a personalized floating window is also adopted, allowing users to easily and quickly achieve a variety of quick operations through innovative gestures.
Of course, Huawei's Mate Xs 2 also paints a blueprint for future technology life. This is the first mobile phone equipped with tri-band Wi-Fi, with the help of the new generation of Hongmeng system, relying on the concurrency of four networks and five networks to have more excellent communication capabilities. In the landing scene, you will no longer be bothered by the number of overlapping layers in the mall, and achieve indoor positioning and accurate navigation for the first time.
Various changes have made Huawei Mate Xs 2 once again update the industry standard, optimize the user experience, and make the folding flagship truly deserved. Although the road to the popularization of folding screen mobile phones still has a long way to go, Huawei has expressed sincerity and determination by lowering the price threshold, improving the performance of the fuselage, and optimizing the user experience. The actual feedback of continuous improvement is to strengthen the confidence of "pollen" and the supply chain, and the general trend of "folding screen" is getting closer and closer, driving the benign operation of the industry on a large scale.
Some experts judge that when the realization of the "two-fold" to "three-fold" leap, the folding screen mobile phone really crossed the gold line of "mature products", only after reaching the three-fold thickness of no more than 10mm and the full-size (diagonal) reached 10 inches of the two key indicators, can it be slowly transformed from "strategic significance" to "universal significance".
At present, the resistance of folding screen to popularization lies in the heavy pain points and price, Huawei based on user insights to bring ultra-thin, ultra-flat, ultra-reliable folding performance, coupled with the price of 9999 yuan, Huawei Mate Xs 2 greatly reduces the threshold for consumers to start, eliminating the user's concerns about starting.
Huawei Mate Xs 2 has played an indispensable role in promoting the process of industrial innovation and accelerating the popularization of folding screens to the masses, but it will not be the end of Huawei's folding screen mobile phones. Five iterations in three years, Huawei continues to innovate, fully layout, and adhere to the original intention: to bring users a better experience with mature technology. Guess when the next surprise will be? (This article was first published on titanium media App)