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Author: Lu
Email: [email protected]

Yesterday, a blogger exposed a photo on social media of Huawei's Executive Director Yu Chengdong using a suspected tri-fold mobile phone on a flight.

Image source: Internet

Prior to this, several bloggers familiar with the supply chain have revealed that Huawei's tri-fold product has now entered the trial production stage and is likely to be officially launched to consumers within the year.

At present, the mainstream folding screen products on the market can be divided into two types: inner folding and outer folding according to the folding method. Inner folding is more common, and in recent years, only two manufacturers that have continued to produce outer folding are Huawei and Honor. Just home.

Huawei Mate Xs Source: Unobjective Lab Honor V Purse Source: Unobjective Lab

However, no matter whether it is inward folding or outward folding, the machines on the market all adopt a 1:1 screen presentation form after the folding screen is unfolded. Although this screen ratio can make both apps close to the traditional straight-screen mobile phone ratio after the application is split, it does not have an advantage over traditional mobile phones in terms of unadapted applications or multimedia playback. There are a large number of unused parts of the screen, making the folding screen "form is greater than meaning."

Image source: Unobjective Laboratory

In fact, since the launch of Samsung Galaxy Fold in 2019, mobile phone manufacturers have been looking for the best positioning for foldable screen products.

Samsung's early folding screens didn't even have a "parallel vision" function, nor did they have adaptive optimization for apps. Apart from the split-screen function, all you could use was actually a large-screen mobile phone that presented a square screen when unfolded.

To this day, I still can’t think of any disruptive application experiences for foldable screens:

In terms of light office use, its practicality is not as good as that of a tablet computer;

If used normally as a mobile phone, those with similar configurations are lighter and thinner than it; those with similar weight are better configured than it.

Image source: Unobjective Laboratory

If there is any function that is currently exclusive to foldable phones, it may be WeChat's "tablet mode" for logging in to tablets and mobile phones at the same time. With it, consumers can openly log in to one WeChat account on two mobile phones at the same time without changing the installation package parameters, which is one of the few good news for "dual-gun" users.

In addition, there is actually an important player missing from the current folding screen market, and that is Apple.

In fact, judging from the exposed technical documents and patent files, Apple still has a lot of technical accumulation in the field of folding screens. However, referring to all the exposed patent documents, clues all point to that Apple’s current focus is on launching a small folding device with a similar shape to the Flip. The Fold large folding device, which is generally positioned as high-end by manufacturers, is not the future development direction of Apple’s folding screen.

I think the reason is that in Apple's internal discussions, it is believed that the large folding screen is not practical. This 1:1 screen ratio has no obvious advantages over the iPad mini in Apple's product line. Instead, it results in a less durable mechanical structure and high maintenance costs. Supply chain master Tim Cook did the math and found that this is not cost-effective.

However, the exposed documents show that Apple is considering a foldable screen product with a screen of about 19 inches. Considering that MacOS does not currently support touch, this is most likely a foldable screen iPad, not a MacBook or iPhone.

The two Samsung tri-fold products that made a splash at CES are actually foldable screens of Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets, not phones. The tri-fold structure makes the foldable screen closer to a tablet, and due to the thickness and weight of the mechanical structure, it is not suitable for holding in one hand for a long time even if it is folded.

Samsung three-fold product demonstration image source: Internet

If the tri-fold tablet is made into a tablet, all the problems will be solved. Because the biggest problem of large-sized tablets is the size.

Sometimes when I am on a business trip, I would struggle with whether to bring a laptop or a tablet + keyboard, but in the end I usually choose a laptop. Because nowadays, tablets larger than 11 inches with keyboards with touchpads are almost the same weight and size as laptops, but due to the limitations of the operating system, tablets cannot perform many functions that laptops can do. This is also the fundamental reason why manufacturers vigorously promote the "productivity" of tablets, but users do not buy it.

iPad Pro Image source: Unobjective Lab

But if the tablet can be folded into a thickness and weight similar to that of two mobile phones, it can be easily stuffed into a small bag, greatly improving portability. For users who do not do heavy office work, this approach of trading portability for performance is still acceptable.

According to Huawei's patent documents from March this year, Huawei's idea for the three-fold is an "S"-shaped fold, which means that the folding screen hinge structures of the Mate Xs and Mate Fold to complete the three folds.

Image source: Internet

Judging from the two types of folding screens that Huawei is currently mass-producing, Huawei has completely mastered the three-fold hinge structure. The only thing this new category needs to consider is how to reduce the weight of the three-fold, and that's all.

The triple fold not only allows the direct use of Huawei's current tablet computer's multi-application split-screen strategy, but also allows the content to fill the screen to the greatest extent when playing multimedia videos. It can be said to be the most perfect form of presenting content on a folding screen, and truly achieves the original intention of a folding screen phone: "When folded, it's a phone, and when unfolded, it's a tablet."

To put it bluntly, the current folding screen mobile phones are actually just "accessories" of manufacturers in the research and development of the ultimate form of hinge structure. They are a phased experimental product, and three-fold is the final form of folding screen products.

According to multiple sources, Huawei will officially release its own three-fold product by the end of 2024. Whether it is a tablet or a mobile phone, Huawei, as a technological pioneer among domestic mobile phone manufacturers, has achieved a major step forward in the folding screen category at all levels. What do you think?