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“Starting in the second half of this year, mobile phones with lifting structures will gradually decrease.
 

An industry insider revealed to PingWest.
  Although the industry will continue to release mobile phones with lift-type structures, the number of models will be relatively reduced compared to the previous ones.

In 2018, vivo and OPPO successively released a flagship mobile phone with a lifting mechanical structure, which made the front of the mobile phone almost a whole screen.

▲OPPO Find X

This seemingly radical attempt at the time sparked industry discussions.
  Some people think that the mechanical structure destroys the integrity of the mobile phone, waterproof and dustproof will be affected, and increase the damage rate;
  Some people think that this is the pursuit of excessive screen occupation.

This does not prevent the “retro” trend of mechanical structures.

In the next few months, in addition to the lifting structure, mobile phones with other mechanical structures emerged in an endless stream, such as the sliding cover of Xiaomi and Glory, similar to the design of the early Nokia N86;
  There is also a Samsung A80 with a lift + flip camera, the rear camera of the phone can be flipped to the front and assume the role of the front camera;
  Even the side-rotating lifting structure of OPPO Reno was derived.

▲Samsung A80

from June 12, 2018, the “retro” mechanical structure has undergone a one-year test of use, it isIs it really durable?
  At the moment, 5G commercial mobile phones have entered the market, and more models will be launched later – the internal space of the 5G mobile phone body will be even more tense.
  Will the lift camera continue?

The mechanical structure is easily damaged?

From a design point of view, the mechanical structure does break the fuselage integrity.
  The industry’s design direction is “integration”. The iPhone 7 uses the Taptic Engine to simulate vibration to replace the physical Home button’s button feedback, the Apple Watch to remove the physical crown, and the vivo launch of the integrated body concept phone vivo APEX 2019. For this reason.

▲vivo APEX 2019

Integrality provides better airtightness to the phone and improved waterproof and dustproof performance.

The mechanical structure seems to be against the trend.
  Although the mobile phone is close to the full screen effect, it is enough to stimulate the consumer’s visual nerve, but it puts higher requirements on the waterproof and dustproof body.

Therefore, in the product promotion, the mobile phone products with mechanical structure are more focused on the waterproof and dustproof inspection of the products.
  OPPO and vivo have opened the production process and quality inspection process of mobile phones, and even the brands such as Jiajia directly use lifting cameras to carry out load-bearing experiments.

One plus CEO Liu Zuohu said:
  “Our products are not certified to be waterproof and dustproof, but the laboratory tests are higher than the standard.
  “

▲OnePlus 7 Pro

Whether Liu Zuohu has lie, we can find out from the after-sales maintenance.

Afeng is a self-employed person who opened a mobile phone shop in Guangzhou and is doing business in repairing mobile phones. He told PingWest to play, and this year’s products such as vivo X27, OPPO Reno and One Plus 7 Pro sold a lot, but there is still no such thing as the warranty.

In the second and third tier citiesIt is very common to collect mobile phones and repair mobile phones in a store like Afeng. In the first-tier cities, it is more common in third-party maintenance organizations. The maintenance technician of an organization responds to Ping West products: “The mechanical structure is currently repaired less, and the screens are repaired.”

It should be noted that the number of times the lifting structure is usually used is actually very small. Most of the front-facing cameras are kept in a contracted state, and manufacturers have made fall protection for the lifting structure, so daily accidental damage is rare.

However, he added: “It is best to buy a broken screen for such a mobile phone. The screen is more expensive than the lifting structure.”

On the official website of each brand, the repair prices of various components of the mobile phone are listed in detail. Among them OPPO Reno’s “screen cover assembly” price is 690 yuan, the front camera and lift module add up to a total of 370 yuan, the screen is much more expensive than the lift module.

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▲OPPO Reno Standard Edition Repair Price

In the case of maintenance, the common damage to the mechanical structure is the cable. In the long-term telescopic operation process, the life of the cable is greatly tested. This problem actually existed in the early slides and flip phones.

The current cable and motor are theoretically more durable than the previous generation. According to the propaganda of the manufacturers, the basic mechanical life of the basic structure is 3-5 years.

The test of 5G mobile phone

The internal stacking of the original 4G phone is already very difficult. The dual-track periscope structure used by OPPO Find X reduces the space inside the fuselage by 11.2%. This has made it difficult to design and process the motherboard stack.

The 5G phones that are now available are mostly changed from the original 4G phones, adding a larger 5G module. This puts higher demands on the stack inside the fuselage.

The solutions from different vendors vary. For example, Huawei chose Huawei Mate X (5G) with a large enough body, but the battery was inevitably reduced from 5000 mAh to 4200 mAh; Samsung violently increased the size of the original mobile phone, and the S10 5G was a whole lap larger than the S10. Samsung has also added a camera to each other; the Plus 7 Pro 5G uses a new internal architecture to allow Qualcomm’s X50 modem to be placed without affecting the battery and form factor.

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▲The right one is S10 5G, the image source The Verge

No matter what the current 5G mobile phone finally presents, the space inside the fuselage is becoming more and more tense. It is no exaggeration to describe it with “inch-inch gold”.

Under the increase in power consumption of 5G mobile phones, battery and heat dissipation are undoubtedly needed to be increased, but the large size of the mechanical structure is inconsistent with it. Whether the next-generation 5G mobile phone continues to use mechanical structure is worthy of a trade-off. It not only takes up space, it also adds weight to the phone along with the battery.

The camera under the screen is the future?

Some people say that if you don’t use a lift camera, the camera under the screen can also achieve the full screen effect.

In June 2019, OPPO demonstrated an engineering machine equipped with an on-screen camera. From the appearance, the front of this phone is a screen, the screen position of the camera is not displayed. And the camera hidden under the screen can work normally, but the shooting effect has to be improved.

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▲OPPO under-screen camera engineering machine

At the same time, there are news that brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo are also working with upstream supply chains to develop screen cameras. Even the news of OPPO and vivo can be used in commercial screen camera technology this year.

In the supply chain, BOE has announced that it will be able to ship flexible AMOLED mobile phone screens with a screen camera in the second half of this year, and Samsung will launch a new machine with a patented screen camera in 2020.

It seems that the real under-screen camera is not far from us. However, on September 5th, OPPO Vice President Shen Yiren poured cold water on everyone. He said: “The full screen form application screen is still very long.” Obviously, no matter which screen camera is used, the current distance is large. There is still a period of commercial use.

But according to the rhythm of new product releases in previous years, this year 9There will be intensive new mobile phone releases in the month and October. In the next six months, there may be new technologies to meet with consumers, just like the 2018 lift structure to bring visual impact to users, so that the mobile phone industry tends to be more stimulating.

In addition, there are still a lot of water drop screen phones in the same period, and the shipment volume is not low. Compared to the lift camera phone, the drop screen may be a more secure full screen transition solution. Whether the lift camera can survive this year is still waiting for time.

The title map is from TechStage