Xiaolei previously mentioned that after participating in the OPPO conference, he felt that the Find X6 Pro was quite exciting, so he bought a Find X6 Pro with the "Desert Silver Moon" color scheme at his own expense.
Three weeks after buying the OPPO Find X6 Pro, do I regret it? In this in-depth review, I mentioned that the OPPO Find X6 Pro had some "minor problems" when taking photos in the firmware of the previous version. For example, the color difference between the default mode and the professional mode, and the wrong judgment of the HDR function in some scenes, etc., make this mobile phone known as "the strongest to take pictures of the surface" slightly inferior.
(Image source: Ray Technology)
In addition, from the feedback of the network, consumers still have many suggestions and questions about the comprehensive experience of this flagship mobile phone, especially the photo part. For example, why did you eliminate the iconic Hasselblad orange shutter button design? Why not provide the more commonly used 2X zoom button? Why is imaging oversharpened in some scenes?
All in all, as summarized in previous reviews, the OPPO Find X6 Pro is indeed the best Find X series mobile phone in recent years, but there is still room for optimization in the experience. In fact, OPPO is also aware of these problems, and while continuously collecting user feedback, it also released a new version upgrade package on the evening of April 26, making adjustments to many of the problems we mentioned.
(Image source: Ray Technology)
For example, the iconic Hasselblad orange shutter button is back, the 2X zoom button has been added, and there are some imaging improvements. Xiaolei simply experienced, the usability of the default mode under the new firmware has been greatly improved, the phenomenon of HDR "rollover" is also much less, and the experience has indeed become better in terms of comprehensive function upgrades.
(Image source: Ray Technology)
Judging from the results, this seems to be a positive example of "OPPO absorbing consumer opinions and actively optimizing", but in addition to some new functions added in response to demand, the so-called "optimization" of basic image quality has some taste of making up for it. Over the years, flagship smartphones have emerged a trend of "first on the bus, then make up the ticket", always releasing products first and then optimizing camera algorithms or other system performance through firmware upgrades to "cash" the bragging bulls at the conference.
This approach may make people think, isn't the flagship smartphone we paid a lot of money for become a "semi-finished product"? What is pessimistic is that this seems to have become a general trend that is difficult to reverse.
The first purchase of the machine but can only buy the "shell" of the flagship mobile phone?
Some people on the Internet commented that the photo part of the OPPO Find X6 Pro was really "complete" after receiving the April 26 update, but Xiaolei believes that manufacturers should not be very happy to hear this statement. Otherwise, the implication is that for a whole month on sale, Find X6 Pro is a "semi-finished product"?
Of course, these are all word games, and no matter what manufacturers look at or consumers think, there are reasonable reasons behind them. Personally, I believe that objectively, the best experience of flagship smartphones appears after several firmware updates, but strictly speaking, the smartphones we get our hands on cannot be called "semi-finished products". It can only be said that at this stage, multiple factors have led to the occurrence of this objective phenomenon, and what we need to understand is what is going on.
One reason is that the pace of competition has changed. We can see that the speed of smartphone change is getting faster and faster, which naturally leads to some cases when the firmware is still not adjusted to the optimal mobile phone has to be released in a hurry. For example, the OPPO Find X2 series was released in March 2020, the Find X3 was released in March 2021, and the release time of Find X5 was advanced to February 2022, and the Find X6 was released back in March, and everyone said "a little later this year".
(Image source: Ray Technology)
On the vivo side, the X70 series was released in September 2021, the X80 was in April 2022, and the X90 was in November 2022 - in general, the pace is indeed getting faster and faster, and manufacturers are scrambling to launch new products. This is naturally also indispensable to the promotion of SoC suppliers, Qualcomm has released flagship chips over the years, the pace of the conference has been pushing forward from the previous December, it is said that this year's new SoC third-generation Snapdragon 8 will appear around September.
It is conceivable that competitors are speeding up, and the supply chain is also accelerating, naturally forcing mobile phone manufacturers to keep up with the release rhythm and launch new products as soon as possible.
But the time is tight is not the core reason, more importantly, time will not be given more or even less, but the workload has increased a lot. Or using OPPO Find X6 Pro as an example, Liu Zuohu said that this generation of products has spent a lot of effort and written a lot of code, "trying to make the algorithm effect of the mobile phone look like there is no traces of the algorithm." Coupled with the addition of independent chips such as Mariana X, the image algorithm of smart phones is not the era of simply setting up the supplier's algorithm in the past, and even the top team needs to optimize all the algorithms to perfection in a limited time.
(Image source: Ray Technology)
Because of this strange rhythm, for the vast majority of mobile phone manufacturers, it has become an impossible task to optimize the product to the best state before the mobile phone goes on sale, optimizing the product to 70 points, and then optimizing the product to 90 points or even 95 points through several version upgrades is feasible, and it is also a solution that consumers can barely accept.
But what we are worried about is actually that the overall performance of the mobile phone at the factory is only 60 points, even if the subsequent upgrade can optimize the experience to 90 points, but this approach is also a very serious harm to the first user. More importantly, we still need to make a gamble: can the manufacturer's subsequent optimization meet our expectations? In the long run, this also increases consumer distrust of the product.
Don't let "OTAs" become empty promises
The controversy over OTA upgrades has a long history, and similar situations exist in the automotive industry, not only in the mobile phone industry. To put it simply, automotive companies will deploy some system functions, such as active parking, in the form of "follow-up OTA upgrades", but in fact, many promised functions disappear after dragging. To this end, we can always see users complaining on the special complaint website "Vehicle Quality Network" that a certain car company has delayed pushing OTA upgrades, suspected of deceiving users, etc.
And what we are worried about is actually similar, although the follow-up function upgrade and experience optimization are the manufacturer's promises, but if the manufacturers do not fulfill the promise for various reasons, consumers have nothing to do.
Not to mention, this time is only because OPPO Find X6 series mobile phones are flagship products, with a very important market position and attention to continue to maintain optimization and upgrades, if other grade, slightly lower positioning mobile phones, can they still get similar treatment? Can the optimization and upgrade of manufacturers still be so timely and rapid? Whether the final push will achieve the desired effect is unknown.
And speaking of benefits, from the consumer's point of view, we are definitely happy to see the products in our hands continue to grow and the experience is getting better and better. Some netizens commented that the OPPO Find X6 series is the "flagship of the cultivation system", because we can see that its experience has always improved significantly with the update of the version in the month after its release, or that each update can bring us surprises, and the feeling of constantly giving positive feedback is good.
Perhaps this can also give manufacturers some inspiration, if the firmware update of the mobile phone can continue to bring positive feedback to users, which has a very significant effect on improving product recognition and brand reputation. Of course, as we said, the premise is that the performance of the product at the factory must not be too bad, at least 80% of the "conference level", otherwise it will be self-defeating in minutes.
(Image source: Ray Technology)
It has to be said that in the environment of intensified industry competition, there are indeed many so-called "thinking innovations", such as constantly "unlocking" the original ability of mobile phones through software OTA, which is a masterpiece. Xiaolei knows that this is a helpless move, but this approach is undoubtedly a double-edged sword for manufacturers, and the product risk is very large. In extraordinary times, there is some sense in using extraordinary methods, but Xiaolei still hopes that manufacturers can prepare most of the capabilities before the mobile phone is released, so that consumers who are supported by the first launch can feel the charm of the product, rather than losing confidence in the actual experience link.
More importantly, Xiaolei does not want the practice of "making up tickets after the fact" to eventually become an excuse for manufacturers, and we support it to make the mobile phone experience better through updates, but using this as an excuse to take out "semi-finished products" when they are on sale, which we firmly oppose. What do you think?