All manufacturers have given their own answers in the past year about how folding screen mobile phones should do this.
(Photo source: OPPO)
Xiaomi and Honor both recognize the priority route of light and light. MIX Fold 2 and Magic Vs are first of all, a large-size foldable mobile phone that is thin enough, and then they provide the flagship-level experience that should be available in this price range in their respective ways. In order to control thickness and weight, the top-level imaging system, under-screen fingerprint recognition, and wireless charging functions can be put aside for the time being.
vivo is determined to be an all-round flagship. From X Fold to X Fold+, it has given foldable screens, wired + wireless fast charging, under-screen fingerprint recognition for dual-screen internal and external screens, and full-focus image including portraits and periscope telephotos. Compared with traditional mobile phones, there is almost no gap in experience. , however, it also comes at a cost to all-around, and the weight of the fuselage jumped to 311 grams of .
Huawei and Samsung choose to use two forms of products to attract consumers. It has a large-size horizontal folding product with good competitiveness, and also a vertical folding screen that can attract female users more - it looks like an ordinary mobile phone that can be held with one hand when expanded, and it becomes small and light after the upper and lower lids. Various manufacturers have applied a more lively and youthful design style on the vertical folding screen, as well as the Motorola , which is in the business style.
OPPO's Find N released in December 2021 can be regarded as a different color product in the folding screen : while providing the switching experience between the mobile phone and the small tablet, it strives to control the overall size of the body, achieving another balance between lighter weight and other specifications. Now it's December again, and a new generation of Find N2 is coming, and new news has also been reported that OPPO is also involved in vertical foldable screen mobile phones.
The new generation of products has two forms
The OPPO Future Technology Conference (INNO DAY) at the end of each year has always been an important occasion for this company to release flexible screen products: 2020 brought the futuristic OPPO X 2021 reel screen concept machine, and in 2021, the first folding screen mobile phone Find N was released. The upcoming OPPO Future Technology Conference 2022 may have two folding screen phones unveiled on .
One of them is Find N2, which is a small-size horizontal folding value based on Find N. It is expected to improve the unripe part of the previous generation products and achieve all-round enhancement. The other one is the product of OPPO's understanding of the vertical folding screen. @Digital Chat Station revealed that it will be named Find N2 Flip, and maybe you can also see a tribute to the classic OPPO flip phone.
According to the exposure message, OPPO Find N2 will continue the previous generation design: the small combination of 7.1-inch inner screen + 5.5-inch outer screen will be a Samsung E6 screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz, and the weight of the body will be 233g of plain leather version and 237g of glass version. Find N2's idea is very clear, its weight is the same as the image flagship on the market, and its size is relatively small, so naturally more people can accept .
(Photo source: OPPO)
performance part is quite standard, is equipped with the well-received Snapdragon 8+ in 2022, and uses a 4520mAh battery with 67W charging . The image part is OPPO's exclusive self-developed chip Mariana X, and the shooting style of Hasselblad . It will use the IMX890 sensor that has been unveiled on the Reno 9 Pro+ as the main camera, and there are 48MP ultra-wide angle and 32MP telephoto to meet the multifocal needs.
The vertical folding mobile phone code-named "Dragonfly" will have more freshness: it also has the IMX890 main camera and Mariana X chip enhancement effect, paired with a 6.8-inch 1080P level resolution 120Hz refresh rate E6 material inner screen and a 3.26-inch external screen, a built-in 4300mAh battery supports 44W charging, weighing 191 grams, and the chip is replaced with the same reputation of Dimensity 9000.
Although it is not certain whether Find N2 Flip is mostly flat or curved, it can be found from the spreading exposure video that OPPO uses an external screen processing method that is different from other vertical folding on this phone. screen does not occupy as much area as possible, maintaining a display ratio similar to that of conventional mobile phones, which may mean that the external screen can cope with more daily usage scenarios .
(Photo source: netizen leaked)
Also interesting is the choice between chips and imaging systems. OPPO may hope to compress the final price of the product as much as possible while providing a high-end experience, so that more consumers will not be discouraged by the high price of folding screens. This trick has been used once in Find N. The practice of breaking the regular price has brought the previous generation of products to the first step of "from tasting to common use". What are the tricks for
OPPO to make folding screens? The future of the foldable screen form of
is self-evident, but it is foreseeable that even new products released within the next year will be difficult to completely solve the many regrets that are inherently present in the deformable shape. Therefore, what progress can the product achieve under this large framework and how special it can have compared to the same period is that the new generation of Find N needs to deal with.
Find N2: Small enough and powerful enough
Find N2 First of all, it improves the previous work, which can be seen in the exposed information. This time, we directly gave the internal and external dual screens with the same specifications as possible. The user will feel much less in the refresh rate, color, and display effect during the switching pattern. The Snapdragon 8+ platform with a significantly improved energy efficiency is adopted, so naturally there is no need to worry about heat or lag in daily experience.
(Photo source: OPPO)
OPPO clearly realizes that the greatest value of Find N is the experience advantage brought by small size , so he dares to make almost no changes on Find N2. After being expanded, it can give the large screen the area and multi-tasking efficiency. After being folded, it can be as small as possible and convenient to carry. It does not have portability conflicts with another possible phone, which is quite rare at the moment.
Other parts can be said to be "adding heads". After all, the main purpose of this product is to be as small as possible after folding and as large as possible after expanding. As long as the other parts can keep up with the horizontal folding product of the same period, it is enough to be successful. In the eyes of users, Find N2 will be a product with photography, performance and system that are very different from other horizontal folds, and portability will have obvious advantages.
Find N2 Flip: The external screen can also be used
According to the exposure information, the product ideas of Find N2 Flip are essentially the same as Find N2: that is, to enter the market where there are already several competitors, and to seize the details of the existing products that are not done well enough but have user calls. OPPO chose to make a more mainstream vertical folding phone in size, but the practicality of the external screen, the upper limit of the imaging system and the cost-effectiveness will be more prominent.
and the horizontally folded outer screen can be used as a complete mobile phone experience carrier when closing the cover. The vertical folding series that has been released have not yet provided much powerful functions on the outer screen. Due to the limitations of screen proportion and size, most external screens such as only have lightweight interactions such as notification display, selfie preview, and weather display. If you want to do more, you must open the screen to complete .
(Photo source: netizen leaked)
OPPO seems to have the intention to make the external screen support all scenes. If the rendered and exposed video are no different from the official version, then this will be a vertical folded external screen with mainstream aspect ratio. The size of 3.26 inches is quite close to that of early smartphones. The display ratio has changed, but it can also meet heavier operations, such as retouching and releasing photos after taking a selfie.
folding screen is perfect, there are at least four problems
The vision is beautiful, but until OPPO officially releases a new generation of folding screen mobile phones, we can only know what special things are about these products. Even if the manufacturer has achieved performance beyond expectations, foldable screen phones still have four problems to be solved in the upcoming 2023.
. It is necessary to clarify who the product is sold to
According to data from multiple research institutions, folding screen sales and market share are increasing year by year, but it cannot be ignored that this is still a niche product form that is limited to high-end positioning. folding mechanism cost and the inherent "noble" of flexible screens make folding screens impossible to popularize everyone's popular product . Therefore, it is necessary for manufacturers to figure out how to make the product recognize the target consumer group.
(Photo source: OPPO)
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip series has given the industry a sample. With the natural characteristics of vertical folding, it has made many convincing things in industrial design, opening up the women's market where horizontal folding has not made much progress. How meets the aesthetics of female users seems to be familiar with OPPO, but the current market environment may not tolerate too radical design style .
, unavoidable durability
I believe you have also seen the "thin lines" caused by the aging of the folding area or the display failure of the entire screen after the folding screen phone is used for a long time, and problems that test durability such as the insufficient strength of the flexible screen also need to be dealt with urgently. This is a big challenge for Find N2 Flip. The vertical folding of makes the bent part naturally more concentrated than the horizontal folding, and the damage to the crease may be more obvious. Only by giving more effective solutions can we truly be accepted by more consumers. Therefore, we hope that OPPO, which tried several water drop hinge iterations before the release of Find N, can provide innovations leading the industry on the first vertical folding mobile phone. Don’t worry about easy damage and high maintenance expenses, so that people can choose folding screen phones with greater confidence.
. The image experience requires "a thousand pounds"
The image hardware used in the folding screen can be regarded as a big bottom at most, which is equivalent to a structure that divides a normal mobile phone into two, which makes this type of product insulated from the super large bottom. This poses a challenge to mobile phone manufacturers. How to provide high-end priced folding screens that can be recognized by consumers on the basis of not top-level hardware. Practicality and fun may be breakthroughs.
(Photo source: OPPO)
Half fold hovering mobile phone's view frame mode is no longer new, and how many more gameplay can be developed next is worth looking forward to. On OPPO's foldable screen phone, Mariana X is expected to use additional computing algorithms to bring photos and videos to a higher position. self-developed image core has the meaning of "fighting the future", but what users want is to take good shots now .
. System differentiation makes people unable to leave
Whether it is OPPO or other mobile phone manufacturers, when introducing foldable screen mobile phones and system updates at the same time, they will say that they have done a lot of effort to improve the large-screen experience. However, the current experience given by the folding screen can only be said to be qualified for the time being, allowing the application originally designed for vertical display to work normally in horizontal or parallel terms, and there is no such situation as a reversal of efficiency.
Next, mobile phone manufacturers have sufficient reasons to continue to make efforts in the folding screen system to be able to switch freely in different forms, and have a special experience in both internal and external screens. only belongs to the folding screen form, and perfectly utilizes the software experience of folding screen hardware characteristics, which makes it difficult to abandon this kind of "moat" with high-priced variable mechanical structure .
