vertical fold or horizontal fold? This is a problem for all folding screen mobile phone manufacturers, because it represents a judgment on the future of the folding screen mobile phone market.
Samsung and Huawei are all necessary, Motorola or Lenovo chooses vertical folding, vivo chooses horizontal folding, and OPPO has also changed its judgment on vertical folding screen mobile phones at least this year.
html In 19th, bloggers revealed that the OPPO Find N codenamed "White Swan" and the vertical folding screen phone codenamed "Dragonfly" have been trial production. @Digital Chat Station Recently, the screen specifications of the OPPO vertical folding screen phone were further exposed on Weibo - 6.8-inch inner screen + 3.26-inch outer screen. Judging from the external screen specifications, it should be closer to Motorola Razr's secondary screen design.
OPPO is not the first one to step on two boats.
Samsung re-releases Galaxy Fold released the Galaxy Z Flip (2020) the second year, and renamed the large-screen folding product to Galaxy Z Fold, establishing two parallel core product lines. Huawei did not launch the P50 Pocket until the end of 2021, which contrasted with the subsequent launch of the Mate Xs 2. Judging from the current information leaked, OPPO obviously also wants to establish a product line for vertical folding screen mobile phones outside Find N.
Why?
In 2013, Samsung released a video of the folding screen mobile phone concept, which was the first impact of the folding screen mobile phone concept on the public. Photo/Samsung
foldable screen mobile phone has been almost bound to the term "big screen" since entering the public's vision. It is related to Samsung's "tone setting" on CES nine years ago, and because "big screen" has long been regarded as the beginning and booster of the entire smartphone market - the first generation iPhone brought a large screen to the new era, and the larger screen Galaxy Note 3 makes it even greater. In the following years, mobile phone manufacturers made countless efforts around the "large screen" until they turned to folding screens after full screen.
If the mobile phone industry has path dependence, the "big screen" can probably be considered one.
But reality is always full of uncertainty. Samsung is the manufacturer that sells the most foldable screen phones, with more than two-thirds of them being the vertically folded Z Flip, rather than the Z Fold, which is more concerned by domestic media. Is it a domestic manufacturer's mistake in judgment and focusing on horizontal folding "large-screen" mobile phone, or is it a decision of domestic consumers' preferences?
Today's folding screen is the most dynamic category in the mobile phone market. In other words, the product form is unstable. Xiaomi , OPPO, Huawei, Samsung, Motorola, and even the screen ratios of each company vary, and even changes every update. Both manufacturers and consumers want to know: what the foldable screen phone will eventually look like.
can’t sell an iPhone together. Will the folding screen be mainstream?
has nearly 10 million units, which is the sales volume of foldable screen mobile phones sold throughout 2021. Also in 2021, 24.1 million units were sold for iPhone 13 Pro Max alone.
The data on the sales of folding screen mobile phones in 2021 is not unified. The overall sales of the folding screen mobile phone industry officially provided by Samsung is nearly 10 million units, the shipments given by IDC are 7.1 million units, and the Counterpoint Research is 9 million units. Omdia even counted the cumulative shipment volume from the first sale of foldable screen phones in 2019 to the end of 2021: 1.5 million .
No matter who is following the data, foldable screen phones around the world have never sold the most expensive phones on the planet. This is the premise that the iPhone 13 Pro Max will be launched at the end of September 2021.
Even if Samsung Galaxy Fold is re-released in 2019, it has been three years since the folding screen phone. But from another perspective, foldable screen mobile phones are still a fast-growing category, and market research institutions and manufacturers are relatively optimistic.
IDC report shows that the foldable screen mobile phone market in 2021 increased by 264.3% year-on-year, and it is expected that shipments will reach 27.6 million units by 2025.Samsung also gave its own data and judgment in the press release - last year, the entire industry's grew by more than 300% year-on-year, and expected this rapid growth to continue. Samsung is full of confidence in the current foldable screen mobile phone market, so that Dr. Lu Taiwen, head of Samsung's MX department (mobile business department), said:
The mainstream moment for foldable smartphones is here. （The Mainstream Moment for Foldable Smartphones Is Here）
Dr. Lu Taiwen, head of Samsung MX department (mobile business department). Photo/Samsung
At the same time, straight-board smartphones represented by iPhone have been in stagnation for many years. Apple 's response is to pursue higher selling prices and higher profits, and even in the financial report, it is contrary to tradition and no longer mentions iPhone sales. In fact, it is not just Apple. The price of Android flagship phones has been rising in the past few years, but high-end phones are easy to make, but high-end brands are difficult to establish.
Folding screen is a good medicine.
The good medicine is that foldable screen mobile phones have established the positioning of high-end products from the beginning. Once they gain a foothold in the market, it is equivalent to establishing the brand awareness among the high-end mobile phone user group, and the image of high-end brands will be easier to maintain.
The bitter taste is that everything still needs to be explored.
large screen is very good, but mobile phones are not just screens
At the press conference in November last year, Liu Zuohu revealed that OPPO's survey showed that 90% of foldable screen mobile phones are in foldable state.
This is obviously not the original intention of foldable screen mobile phones. Ideally, the folding screen phone should be the same as a conventional straight-panel smartphone in the folded state, and it can fully provide a unique experience with a large screen when it is expanded.
Reality is trapped by technology and cannot do both. If you want to ensure that the folding screen phone has flagship level in performance, photography, screen and other aspects, it will inevitably be thick and heavy; if you want to make the folding screen phone light and thin, you will inevitably not be able to catch up with conventional flagship phones in all aspects. This is a matter of technology and product trade-offs.
Find N's choice is to make it small - the inner main screen is 7.1 inches and the outer secondary screen is 5.49 inches, which is smaller in size than all current large screens foldable mobile phone . Although it has not been made thin, the weight has also dropped to 275g. Coupled with Liu Zuohu's consistent pursuit of "feeling", the holding feel of Find N has indeed been recognized by many media and users.
Image source: Lei Technology filmed
Xiaomi and vivo are going in completely opposite directions. In terms of product definition, MIX Fold 2 puts "slimness" at the core, giving up free hovering, crease optimization, lens specifications, and under-screen fingerprints. Critics believe that MIX Fold 2 is useless except for thinness, and praises praise Xiaomi's precise positioning. vivo X Fold brings the stacking of folding screen phones to the extreme, and the camera, internal and external screens have flagship specifications, but the price is:
heavy.
has a thickness of nearly 15mm and a weight of about 311g, which is nearly 30% heavier than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, second only to the Royole Fleexpai series. Vivo's choice is not difficult to understand. There are many people who criticize the heavy folding screen phones and the specifications of not as good as conventional flagship phones. It can be said that X Fold is targeting a user group who is dissatisfied with the existing folding screen specifications. It can also be said that vivo is more optimistic about the market prospects of the "heavy specifications and light weight" product direction.
Samsung and Huawei may not agree.
Image source: IDC China
IDC Data shows that in 2021, China's foldable screen mobile phone market share was 49.3% by Huawei, and second place Samsung accounted for 28%. According to the DSCC report, in 2021, Samsung ranked first with 87% of the global foldable screen mobile phone market, and Huawei ranked second with 9%.
In the Samsung press release mentioned above, Dr. Lu Taiwen also pointed out that 70% of Samsung foldable screen mobile phone users use Z Flip and 30% use Z Fold.Huawei also officially launched the P50 Pocket last year, with a vertical folding design and adopting a similar solution to the Z Flip. The secondary screen only uses a small screen, mainly providing some information and notification messages.
Looking back, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Huawei have folded the large screen in the past year to get closer to the basic experience, to improve the large screen usage experience while ensuring the portability of the phone and the grip experience. At the same time, in addition to Samsung and Lenovo, Huawei and OPPO have been confirmed to enter the competition for vertical folding screens. Xiaomi also has rumors that it will launch vertical folding screen phones as early as the end of this year. Is
still too heavy?
The development center of folding screen products has changed
The starting point of Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is 2020. A year ago, Motorola opened a vertical folding screen phone with the story of Razr's new blade, and has attracted the attention of the market and consumers through its sentiment and technological innovation. Then Z Flip successfully rose to the women's market with its compact and exquisite appearance design, with its iPhone Pro Max-level large screen and a series of hover functions developed for female users, and had a great impact on Weibo, Xiaohongshu and Instagram.
By 2021, all foldable screen phones, including Z Fold, have not sold Z Flip 3 in total.
Image source: Wiki, owner: Ka Kit Pang
Z The success of the Flip series is of course multifaceted. What is certain is that it cannot be separated from the weight slightly lower than conventional flagship phones, and the screen as big as the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The folding screen concept video displayed by Samsung at CES 2013 nine years ago has laid the foundation for today's folding screen phones to a certain extent, but folding can make the screen bigger and the body smaller and lighter.
However, by the end of 2021, no domestic mobile phone chose to follow up. "The big screen is the only correct way" is probably what everyone is thinking about.
This is not a denial of the value and market prospects of "large screens". The demand for large screens naturally exists, but the question is whether the price can be accepted by consumers. Consumers’ dissatisfaction with the weight of folding screen phones can be seen in e-commerce websites, digital communities, and social platforms. These problems are not seen at the beginning, but are not valued by manufacturers.
Whether it is the sales impact of Z Flip or the manufacturer's attention to user feedback, no matter what, the changes will come. Find N took a small step back in the direction of horizontally folding the large screen, making the body smaller and lighter; the P50 Pocket and OPPO "Dragonfly" project chose to stuff the screen of a regular large-screen phone into a lighter body; the MIX Fold 2 and Mate Xs 2 gave up some key indicators for thinness under the large screen.
Everything seems to be reminding, at least at this stage the center of gravity of the folding screen has changed.
