【Mobile Phone China Review】Is folding screen mobile phone a trend? be! Otherwise, major mobile phone manufacturers will not bet on developing their own folding screen products.
According to the report released by IDC, the domestic market folding screen mobile phone market size is about 1.5 million units in 2021, although it accounts for only 0.5% of the smartphone market, but it is a must for manufacturers. According to the iResearch consulting report, by 2025, China's folding screen mobile phone shipments are expected to reach 13.8 million units, and the annual growth rate remains at about 60%, which is a very potential market from this trend, in a sense, it is possible to fold the screen to win the world. After several years of precipitation, the current domestic folding screen market has basically formed a stable pattern.
In the domestic market in 2021, the market share of Huawei's folding screen mobile phone reached 49.3%, ranking first; the market share of Samsung folding screen mobile phones was 28.8%, ranking second; and the market share of Xiaomi folding screen mobile phones was 13.2%, ranking third. After that, they are OPPO, Lenovo and others. This year, we also saw the entry of glory and vivo, full of momentum, which also made the folding screen market more lively.
Occupying half of the folding screen mobile phone, how does Huawei do it? In fact, it is inseparable from the accumulation of generations of products. So far, Huawei has released Mate X, Mate Xs, Mate X2, P50 Pocket, Mate Xs 2 five folding screen products, three years and five generations, and is currently the only set of in-fold, external fold, vertical folding solutions of the manufacturer, has a strong technical reserves, which for Huawei in the market competition to win the opportunity.
CNMO recently got Huawei's latest release of Mate Xs 2, after a multi-day trial, we believe that a number of technological breakthroughs in this phone have made it a folding screen mobile phone pain point terminator. As Yu Chengdong said, Mate Xs 2 will become an "epoch-making product", not because of its folding form, but because it solves the pain points of the folding machine and makes technology benefit the public.
Is the inner fold better than the outer fold? As long as the technology is excellent, it is a good folding solution
At the time of the release of Huawei Mate X2, the rhetoric about "folding is an outdated plan, Huawei gave up" was rampant, making many people think that Huawei had made a wrong exploration. Although Huawei also clarified that both internal and external folds will be done, it is difficult to be convincing without product updates. Now with the release of Mate Xs 2, Huawei has also used products to prove that the internal fold is not better than the external fold, as long as the technology is excellent, how to fold, how to fold!
On the surface, manufacturers are scrambling to do in-folding solutions, its biggest advantage is that the inner screen can be folded up when it is not used, and it can be better protected, in contrast, the external folding solution screen has been exposed, which increases the risk of damage. But putting aside the risk, you will find that the external folding scheme can actually use one screen to solve the problem solved by the two screens of the inner folding scheme, whether it is folded or expanded, a screen will make you use it with ease. This is a good solution to a pain point of the folding screen mobile phone - heavy, less than a screen weight can be a lot lighter, while the cost has also dropped a lot, the price of Mate Xs 2 can be less than 10,000 yuan, the discount program has made a great contribution.
The body weight of Huawei Mate Xs 2 standard version is only 255g, and the collector's version is 257g, which is comparable to that of ordinary bar phones, and is currently the lightest horizontal folding screen mobile phone. What is the concept of 257g? Let's make a simple comparison, the same folding scheme, the previous generation of Mate Xs weighs about 300g; the weight of the inner folding product Mate X2 is 295g; the weight of OPPO's compact folding screen mobile phone Find N is 275g; the weight of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is 271g; the weight of the Honor Magic V is 293g; and the weight of the vivo X Fold is 311g. Compared with a number of horizontal folding screen products, the Mate Xs 2 has a great weight advantage. If you're used to using an iPhone, it weighs less than the 272g of the iPhone 13 Pro Max (238g) wearing a MagSafe transparent case (34g), a world record for a folding screen phone like the Mate Xs 2.
Comparison of mainstream folding screen products
As for the reason why the Mate Xs 2 is light, in addition to the lack of a screen, there are actually many technologies, which we will explain to you later. Now we may wish to first look at whether the battery has shrunk in addition to doing lightness? Pulling out the above several models, let's make a simple comparison. Mate Xs battery capacity 4500mAh, Mate X2 battery capacity 4500mAh, Find N battery capacity 4500mAh, Z Fold 3 battery capacity 4400mAh, Magic V battery capacity 4750mAh, X Fold battery capacity 4600mAh. In contrast, it can be seen that the Mate Xs 2 Collector's Edition with a built-in 4880mAh battery increases the battery capacity while being light, which is crucial for the battery life of the folding screen.
In terms of screen, Huawei Mate Xs 2 also makes up for some shortcomings of the previous generation of products, with a resolution of 2480x2200, 424 PPI, 120Hz intelligent refresh rate, 1440Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, with 1.07 billion colors and P3 global color management, the display quality has made great progress. The Mate Xs 2 is also equipped with a special anti-reflective nano-optical coating that reduces reflectivity and also reduces the imprint generated when the finger touches the screen.
Time is not the terminator of pain points, technology is the time and space traveler who smooths out the "scars"
In the part of evaluating the weight of the Mate Xs 2, we sold a pass, and now I will decrypt it for you. Its weight reduction is not only because there is only one screen, but also the key is the upgrade of the hinge and materials. Mate Xs 2 uses micron-level technology, the cover plate is made of ultra-light glass fiber, the strength density ratio is increased by 1.6 times, and the thickness of the battery back cover is only 0.5mm thick, which is strong and reliable, with an aluminum alloy shaft, bringing excellent hand feel.
On the hinge, Huawei Mate Xs 2 adopts an original new generation of double rotor wing hinge design, which achieves a seamless folding form and also brings a thinner body thickness. Materially, the entire hinge system applies a variety of high-precision special materials and special processes to further reduce the weight, and the uniquely designed composite hinge support structure can provide composite support, effectively improve the hinge strength, unfold without marks, and close seamlessly.
In order to improve the durability of the folding screen, Mate Xs 2 adopts a composite laminated screen similar to the body armor structure, through the protective film, support layer, hinge stack design, and high-performance material support, effectively absorb and block stress, more resistant to falling, but also more wear-resistant, with the screen periphery aluminum alloy protective frame, even if the use of folding design Mate Xs 2 does not have to worry about a series of wear problems.
It is worth mentioning that when we use Mate Xs 2, we found that whenever we unfold or fold, there will be a non-conspicuous pulling action on the edge of the screen, which may also be a new idea to solve the crease problem of folding screen mobile phones, and the effect can be referred to the above figure.
Looking at the market, some people care about the quality of the folding screen, some people care about the weight, some people pay attention to the crease, Huawei Mate Xs 2 directly came with one stone and three birds.
Yu Chengdong boasted of Haikou, time is the touchstone, research and development innovation is the jingwei bird
At the image level, the Huawei image brand created by Huawei has already built a solid moat for mobile images, and the combination of the Mate series and the P series allows different users to enjoy the charm of Huawei images.
Huawei's Mate Xs 2 is equipped with a 50-megapixel primary color imaging system and supports computational optics, making it the second product to support computing optics after the P50 series. It also features new lens modeling and lens parameter calibration, preserving complete picture detail and color accuracy. A 50-megapixel primary color camera that restores true colors, combined with a 10-channel multispectral sensor, P3 full color gamut 2000+ color tuning, for an excellent shooting experience.
The above group is a 1X sample of Huawei Mate Xs 2, thanks to the blessing of primary color images, the overall picture color is very well restored, and what you see is what you get. At the same time, with the blessing of XD Optics computing optics, the clarity of the picture has also been improved, whether it is shooting still life, architecture, landscape, you can shoot well. If you are a veteran user of the Huawei P50 series, then shooting with the Mate Xs 2 will feel like a long time away.
The above group is a telephoto sample of Huawei Mate Xs 2, the first two are shot in 3.5X mode, and the last one is shot in 5X mode, which is basically the most commonly used focal length for users to shoot daily. From the actual effect, whether it is the color or clarity of the picture, Mate Xs 2 has a good performance, the ability of this telephoto lens can cover the user's daily shooting needs, especially thanks to computational optics, its actual effect is better than other products in the same focal length.
The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is equipped with a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that supports ultra-wide-angle shooting as well as 2.5cm macro shooting. The above is a set of macro samples, after reading I believe that everyone will have two of the most intuitive feelings. First, the clarity is high enough, it will not be like the slag picture quality presented by some products on the market after shooting macro samples, and the ornamentation is very high; the second is that the color reproduction ability is very excellent, the cockroach of Figure 1 shows vitality, and the color of the flowers is very warm, and there is no color cast, which is very pleasing. If you like to take macro photos on a daily basis, then the Mate Xs 2's excellent macro capabilities will make you do more with less.
On the Mate Xs, we saw Huawei's whimsical idea of selfies, and the selfie in the rear lens is indeed more playable. On the Mate Xs 2, Huawei brings mirrored smart shooting gameplay, when the screen is expanded, you can preview the camera shooting screen in full screen and shoot it. When folded, the camera is displayed on the main screen by default, and the logic of taking pictures is the same as that of the bar. After opening the mirror smart shooting, the folding form can use the secondary screen to complete the selfie, you can also open the secondary screen collaboration function, the main screen and the second screen at the same time display the framing screen, suitable for someone to help us take pictures when we can also preview, so as to pose and so on. Of course, it also has a front-facing ultra-wide-angle camera in the upper right corner of the screen.
In the previous warm-up, Yu Chengdong also revealed that the Wi-Fi speed of Mate Xs 2 is very fast, in fact, it uses tri-band Wi-Fi (dual 5GHz + 2.4GHz industry's highest Wi-FI peak rate), which can achieve theoretical data 4Gbps transmission rate. Although the Mate Xs 2 is equipped with a Snapdragon 888 processor, its experience is superior to that of traditional 4G networks through the blessing of Hongmeng Smart Communications.
At the software level, Huawei Mate Xs 2 is the industry's first mobile phone that supports UX self-reconstruction folding screen, equipped with Huawei's first adaptive UI engine, which obtains the original layout information through self-learning, and re-optimizes the layout of graphic and text information for the application interface, and the layout is more refined. At present, the TOP300 application has achieved 100% large-screen adaptation, and the TOP2000 application has achieved 90% large-screen adaptation, and interested partners can experience it later.
Write at the end
Standing at the head of the folding screen industry tide, look at it, in the past, other manufacturers are also enemies and friends, but they are the creators of the dream heavenly kingdom of folding screens. When Huawei holds the determination of five folding machines in three years to sprint on this track, even if there are thousands of difficulties and obstacles, it will also bloom new scientific and technological crystals on the way back to research and development. Although Huawei Mate Xs 2 is not the first folding machine in 2022, it will not be the last, but Huawei's dedication to technology may make it the only folding machine that uses external folding, and can eliminate the weight, crease, and experience of folding screen mobile phones by solving technical bottlenecks.