As the world's most influential mobile communication industry event, the annual MWC has long become a major wind vane in the smartphone industry. As MWC 2023 approaches, a wave of new technologies and products is on the horizon. This year's MWC 2023 is themed "VELOCITY-SPEED", thanks to the continuous iteration of technology, smartphones have become more powerful. So, what will be the highlight at this year's MWC?
MWC 2023 is about to open, and for the exhibition status of smartphones, Jiwei Network made a prediction. In terms of images, because Xiaomi's exclusive IMX989 has expired, it will appear on more flagship models, setting off a wave of images; During last year's MWC 2022, realme's 240W Super Flash Charge was still memorable, and this year's first model GT3 equipped with 240W Flash Charging will also appear; In the past year, self-developed chips have become a key track for major manufacturers, and an important review will also be ushered in at MWC 2023.
A new level of imaging capabilities
In recent years, imaging has become the main track for mobile phone manufacturers to compete, which also reflects the current trend of the image era. At the new machine press conference of major manufacturers, the keynote speakers will introduce the ability of mobile phones in images with the largest space, and it can be said that the "involution" of the image track has reached an outrageous level.
Objectively, there are too many technologies involved in imaging, and the requirements for hardware and software are also very demanding, covering SoCs, CIS sensors, optical lenses, independent chips and AI algorithms. At the same time, with the continuous iterative evolution of technology, consumers' experience needs are also constantly escalating, giving rise to new requirements such as night scene shooting, optical zoom and computational photography.
In pursuit of more competitive imaging capabilities, there are more and more joint R&D between manufacturers and upstream suppliers. For example, the IMX989 bottom jointly launched by Xiaomi and Sony, the deep intermediation and interconnection between MediaTek and vivo, so that the performance of the Dimensity platform can be fully played. In addition, the cooperation between major mobile phone manufacturers and ZEISS, LYCRA, Hasselblad and other manufacturers has also become an important blessing in imaging capabilities.
When it comes to mobile phone images, we have to mention the IMX989 launched by Sony in Q2 last year, which successfully brought the moving image sensor into the 1-inch era. As the so-called "bottom level crushes people", larger image sensors can bring better background blur to photos, more natural and deep depth of field. In the past year, including Xiaomi 12S Ultra and vivo X90 Pro/Pro+ have gained a good reputation for outstanding imaging capabilities, and they are inseparable from its blessing.
As of now, models equipped with this 1-inch CIS main camera include the Sharp Aquos R7, Xiaomi Mi 12s Ultra, vivo X90 Pro/Pro+, and Xiaomi Mi 13 Pro. Since the period of Xiaomi's exclusive IMX989 has passed, it is foreseeable that at this MWC, you should be able to see many new models that use IMX989 as the main camera.
With the continuous iterative upgrading of mobile phone performance, the picture quality is getting better and better, and mobile games have become the main application of countless users. Judging from the recent launch of new products, whether it is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8Gen2 or MediaTek's Dimensity 9200, mobile ray tracing technology is an important publicity point to bring a more immersive experience to mobile gamers.
In terms of user experience, mobile ray tracing technology is an important revolution, which brings many aspects of image quality improvement. First of all, mobile ray tracing brings a better "soft shadow" effect, which can present a more realistic light perception and detail; Second, it brings more realistic mirror effects, such as mirrors, puddles and other scenes, making the picture more three-dimensional and space-like; In addition, it can also present a better "refraction" effect, so that different materials can be more accurate and extreme.
Since the underlying principle of mobile ray tracing technology is to simulate the trajectory and effect of light running with calculation, so as to achieve a light and shadow effect close to the real picture, this requires very strong computing power as support. Therefore, both Qualcomm and MediaTek are based on hardware acceleration to achieve this technology.
In recent years, smart phones have made continuous breakthroughs in imaging, invisibly broadened application scenarios, and continuously changed our lifestyle. The improvement in camera, coupled with the convenience of carrying, just take out the mobile phone and tap it to get a photo, replacing the camera to some extent. Better screen display makes more people use it to play games and watch videos, replacing computers and game consoles to some extent.
A highly anticipated self-developed chip
In the face of fierce market competition and increasingly serious product homogenization, in order to better create product differentiation, self-developed chips have become an important starting point for major manufacturers to seek breakthroughs. At this MWC 2023, it is expected that the self-developed chips of mobile phone manufacturers will also become a beautiful scenery.
In recent years, although major manufacturers have set their sights on self-developed chips, they have produced obvious differences in the specific route. Vivo focuses on self-developed image chips, from V1 to V1+, and then to V2, vivo is becoming more and more familiar, especially the image performance of the X90 series allows people to see the results of hard work. Xiaomi has chosen the direction of "small and beautiful", self-developed surging series chips, layout images, fast charging, battery management and other small and practical chips, which has become a core competitiveness of its products. OPPO's self-research strategy is obviously more radical, self-developed Mariana series chips, focusing on the field of image, audio, and also building a product moat.
Compared with other manufacturers, OPPO's investment in self-developed chips is significantly greater. Since 2021, OPPO has successively launched the Mariana X image-specific NPU and the Mariana Y Bluetooth audio SoC. At the beginning of this month, OPPO's OnePlus Ace 2 made its world premiere equipped with a SUPERVOOC S full-link power management chip, representing OPPO to take down a city again on the self-developed chip.
In general, there are many considerations behind the major mobile phone manufacturers' commitment to chip self-research, both based on user experience, based on practical considerations, and even supply chain factors.
According to a few days ago, the "mobile phone chip master" revealed on Weibo, OPPO's self-developed mobile phone processor will be built using the 4nm process, the foundry may be TSMC, has begun to tape-out, and then there is the 5G SOC chip. Previously, the industry had predicted that terminal products equipped with OPPO's self-developed AP would be available in early 2024, and now the tape-out progress has exceeded expectations, and OPPO is expected to launch OPPO mobile phones equipped with self-developed APs as early as the second half of this year.
According to the current public information of the company, OPPO will bring the second self-developed chip MariSilicon Y to MWC 2023 site, but unfortunately this chip is no longer the first launch. However, it is foreseeable that we are expected to see major manufacturers decentralize self-developed chips to more models.
In recent years, the wave of self-developed chips can be described as sweeping the entire mobile phone industry, due to the difficulty of development, basically do not directly do extremely difficult processor or baseband chips, but from the less difficult peripheral chips, gradually to the more difficult chips to challenge. At this MWC 2023, the most anticipated nature is the release of new self-developed chips.
More highlights: Super Flash Charging/Wi-Fi 7/Curly Screen
At this MWC 2023, in addition to image upgrades and self-developed chips, smartphones also have many highlights that can be expected, such as super flash charging, Wi-Fi 7, curly screen and so on.
At MWC 2022 in Barcelona, OPPO released the 240W super flash charge for the first time, which can fully charge the equivalent 4500mAh battery in 9 minutes, refreshing the wired charging power and charging speed of smartphones, which is still fresh in people's memories. According to official external news, OPPO's sub-brand realme's first model GT3 equipped with 240W flash charging will also appear at MWC 2023.
From the initial fast charging to super fast charging, and then to today's super flash charging, mobile phone manufacturers have put a lot of effort into solving users' "power anxiety". From the current mobile phone industry standard, the highest power that the Type-C interface can withstand is exactly 240W, which means that 240W flash charging technology can be said to have reached the upper limit of the current fast charging technology.
At last year's MWC 2022, Qualcomm launched the FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity system, and ZTE also launched the world's first Wi-Fi 7 consumer product, a Wi-Fi 7 5G CPE (customer premises device) device. In addition, MediaTek, New H3C, Broadcom, TP-Link and other manufacturers have successively launched Wi-Fi 7-related products and solutions in the past year.
Just recently, Xiaomi announced that the Xiaomi 13 series, Redmi K60 Pro and Xiaomi 10 Gigabit router will upgrade Wi-Fi 7, taking the lead in forming an end-to-end ecosystem around the Wi-Fi 7 standard. From the perspective of the industry, Xiaomi's move marks that Wi-Fi 7 related certification is about to be opened in China, and there will be more and more related products. Therefore, this MWC 2023 may see more new developments and new products for Wi-Fi 7.
In the past year, affected by the weak situation of the smartphone market, the industry has fallen into a period of trough. In the downturn of the entire mobile phone market, folding screen mobile phones have achieved contrarian growth. However, due to physical factors, folding screens are prone to creases, so the industry has found a curly screen solution to solve this problem.
According to the industry chain news, at present, Samsung, LGD, Visionox, BOE, TCL, OPPO and other manufacturers are promoting the landing of curly screens, and the pace of mass production and commercial production of curly screen smartphones is accelerating, so it can be expected that the latest curly screen mobile phones may be seen at MWC 2023.
As an annual industry event, MWC has become an important festival in the mobile communication industry, and the "big smash" between smartphone manufacturers has always been a popular scene for the audience. As for what kind of "big killer" the major manufacturers will come up with at this MWC 2023, it is better to sit and wait for the official arrival of the exhibition.