512GB is also not enough The last three times I changed my phone was because of it

　　After 10 consecutive quarters of year-on-year decline, China's smartphone market rebounded in Q4 2023, with shipments reaching 73.63 million units, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%. Although the slight recovery can be said to be a rare good news for the smartphone industry, the market performance is still significantly lower than expected. According to the quarterly mobile phone tracking report released by IDC, China's smartphone market will ship about 271 million units in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 5.0%, the lowest shipment in nearly 10 years.

　　There are many "debuffs" behind the sluggish performance of the smartphone market, which is the most obvious among consumers - everyone doesn't want to change their mobile phones very much, and this topic has become one of the hot topics in the industry in the past two years.

　　So why?

　　To put it simply, in addition to the limited budget and the need to renovate, the lack of innovation in mobile phones in recent years has not brought new functions, which is difficult to arouse the demand of users to replace their phones, and major brands have greatly improved the durability of mobile phones through the optimization of materials and designs, which has also extended the use time of mobile phones to a certain extent.

　　Although some users have extended the cycle of replacing their mobile phones for various reasons, there are also users who keep up with the new ones, but their eyes are mainly focused on high-end flagship phones. This has also become a very interesting phenomenon, and short sitcoms will be staged in the circle of friends every year - from "the new machine is too expensive, no money to buy it", to "the top iPhone has grabbed the first launch" and "the folding screen is easy to use". This has also become an "old stalk" that is often ridiculed in the digital circle, saying that they don't want to change their mobile phones, but they don't squeak when they check it, and they use the new flagship.

　　IDC also released the survey data also mentioned that the demand for the smartphone market mainly comes from high-end people in 1-3 tier cities, for example, most of the better-selling products are concentrated in the flagship product series of Apple iPhone 15, Huawei Mate 60, Xiaomi 14, vivo X100 and other brands, and the high-end market share with a price of more than $600 increased by 3.7% year-on-year to 27.4% The sales of low-end products, which are mainly responsible for the volume, have not improved significantly, and the market share of mobile phones priced below $400 is down 1.4% year-on-year, and the replacement needs of low-end users, who occupy most of the market share, have not been fully released.

　　In terms of shipments, in 2023, despite a 2.2% year-on-year decrease in sales, Apple still occupies the first place with a market share of 17.3%, the smallest decline among the top five brands.

　　In addition, from the perspective of user attention, flagship phones that can highlight the "strength and family background" of various mobile phone brands are also more eye-catching. According to the 2023 Weibo hot search trend report released by Weibo, the top five of the top ten hot search models in the mobile phone industry in the second half of 2023 are iPhone 15 (from 5999 yuan), Huawei Mate 60 (from 5499 yuan), vivo X100 (from 3999 yuan), Xiaomi 14 (from 3999 yuan), and OPPO Find N3 (from 9999 yuan). The cake of the high-end market has been eyed for a long time, whether it is a conventional flagship or a folding screen, and it is still the focus of the competition among mobile phone manufacturers.

　　As for the factors that drive users to change to new ones, in addition to mobile phone manufacturers continuing to roll up new heights of performance, image, and design, there may be one more item in 2024 - AI.

　　Looking back at the mobile phone I recently bought, the factors that prompted me to change the phone were neither stronger performance, nor better photo experience, nor support for satellite calls, environmental protection, new materials... It's storage, yes, it's photos, videos, and chat logs. From 128GB to 256GB to 512GB, I finally feel the security of the remaining space of the mobile phone in more than 100GB. Whether the arrival of AI will make this sense of security disappear is something to see.

　　Although the storage is lower than the SoC, camera, screen and even the battery of the mobile phone, but if the space is insufficient, then the sense of presence will directly overtake in the corner, how many friends delete old photos in order to take new photos, and give up some cache content in order to make space for WeChat, especially the frequent pop-ups of insufficient storage space, which is really angry and hateful. In fact, the change of mobile phone storage space also corresponds to the change of mobile phone usage scenarios.

　　About ten years ago, mobile phone images were just opened, 4G connection opened a new chapter in streaming media, and the mainstream storage specifications gradually developed from 32GB/64GB to 128GB; Five years ago, short videos, online ultra-high-definition videos, live broadcasts, and mobile phone images were fully upgraded, and 128GB of "entry-level" storage space was stretched thin under the impact of thousands of photos and hundreds of videos, and even the mainstream gear of 256GB was in jeopardy for mobile game players, creators, and other users.

　　Now, 5G and device-side AI use cases are abundant, which also brings new challenges to storage. In particular, the deployment of large models on mobile phones, although it has been optimized, will still occupy a large space, and not only capacity but also performance, the processing and inference process of localized large models requires high-speed storage access, if the storage access speed cannot keep up with the processing speed, it will also lead to a bottleneck in computing performance, affecting the efficiency and accuracy of model inference.

　　So, will the big model allow me to upgrade my phone from 512GB to 1TB, and the answer is clear for now: no.

　　In terms of configuration, the terminal-side AI may drive the entry-level storage of high-end machines to further improve, but for users, the application of AI large models on mobile phones in 2024 can only be called the "incubation period". At the same time, the deployment and maintenance of terminal models urgently need to consider issues such as data security and privacy protection, which is also a challenge that mobile phone manufacturers and developers must face.

　　If a more comprehensive AI experience becomes the standard for smartphones of different gears in the future, then the storage specifications of the entry-level model may be further improved. From the perspective of accelerating the recovery of the mobile phone industry, it is not a good thing.

　　Overall, with the surge in data volume, storage has an increasing impact on the mobile phone experience, if you don't want to change your phone frequently, and you are a heavy mobile phone user (with shooting, gaming, etc.), then it is recommended to choose 512GB. The large amount of space left is really secure, and even if you suddenly need to record for a long time, you don't have to worry about running out of space.

　　Another point is AI, if you want to buy a mobile phone with better AI performance now, then in addition to paying attention to the chip, you must not ignore details such as storage and memory, "the bigger, the better". After all, it's hard to make them "add to the glory" of their experience, but it's very easy to become a bottleneck. However, judging from the current application volume and scenarios, 512GB is already very sufficient, if you don't want to be emptied by mobile phone manufacturers, then the 1TB version can wait for another two years.