Content

1. Mi TV Q1 75 QLED by Xiaomi
2. Tesla and the new Cadillac LYRIQ
3. Tesla invested in bitcoins
4. Laptop market results 2020
5. Instead of a conclusion: an interview with Elon Musk that is worth watching

Mi TV Q1 75 QLED by Xiaomi

On Monday, at a presentation dedicated to the global launch of the Mi 11 smartphone, Xiaomi unveiled a 75-inch QLED TV.

Main technical characteristics:

• Size: 75 inches
• Type: QLED, 120Hz MEMC refresh rate, 178 degree viewing angle
• Resolution: 3840 x 2160, 4K UHD
• Brightness: 1000 nits peak brightness, 500 nits minimum brightness, 192 zones local illumination
• Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, BT 709 99%
• Color Depth: 1.07 Billion Colors
• Supports: Dolby Vision, HDR10 +, HDR10, HLG
• Sound: stereo speakers with a total power of 30 watts, each pair consists of 4 woofers (bass) and 2 tweeters (high and mid frequencies)
• Ports and communication: Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz / 5GHz, HDMI 2.1 * 1pc, HDMI 2.0 * 2pc, USB 2.0 * 2pc, Ethernet * 1pc, 3.5mm * 1pc, Optical output * 1pc, AV * 1pc, DVB-T2 / C * 1pc, DVB-S2 * 1pc, digital tuner
• Processor: MediaTek MT9611, 4 cores at 1.5 GHz
• Memory: 2 GB
• Storage: 32 GB
• OS: Android Tv 10, Xiaomi PatchWal Shell
• Other: Bluetooth remote included
• Dimensions and weight: 1673.5 * 368.9 * 1029.9 mm and 33.3 kg (including stand)
• Price: 999 euros (90 rubles) at the start of sales, the recommended price is 000 euros (1 rubles)
• Date on sale: March 2021

The most premium TV from Xiaomi at the right price. In general, Xiaomi is in its repertoire, as it offers a little more than its closest competitor, but at a more pleasant price. According to Yandex.Market, the first competitor is QLED Samsung QE75Q60TAU 75 ″ (2020) for 110-120 thousand rubles. Formally, Xiaomi should have more powerful sound (30 W versus 20 W), the refresh rate of the screen is 120 Hz versus 100 Hz for Samsung. Samsung only supports HDR10 +. Actually, this is a technology invented by Samsung to avoid paying Dolby royalties for its Dolby Vision. Xiaomi TV supports both HDR10 + (Samsung allows free licensing) and Dolby Vision. So that the owners of the iPhone 12 will be able to watch videos shot on a smartphone.

One of the clear advantages of the Mi Tv is the presence of an HDMI 2.1 port, which supports 120 fps in 4K resolution and 60 fps in 8K. Thus, Xiaomi is kind of hinting that its TV is great for the next generation of consoles. On gamers, Xiaomi puts a special emphasis, promising a “perfect product” due to the presence of a certain Auto Low Latency Mode, that is, an automatic low latency signal mode.

Also, the TV can act as a hub for smart gadgets from Xiaomi. And also look at how cool the TV remote is. Probably, there will be a different version for Russia, but I noticed that since about last year, Amazon Prime was added to the remotes, in addition to the already familiar Netflix button.

Since I have not seen the TV live, I can only assume that on Samsung’s side, perhaps, screens of slightly better quality (for example, Samsung uses dual-backlight technology), more advanced software (for example, the presence of such functions as interior mode when the TV adjusts to the texture of the walls or displays an image of paintings and photographs). I would venture to suggest that in this case, the use of Samsung’s own Quantum 4K processor with upscaling technology is Samsung’s advantage. What Xiaomi Mi Tv can do in this regard is still unknown.

Probably, the TV will not find a response among Russian fans of Xiaomi products because of the price. Of course, you need to watch live and test, but according to the characteristics, the price tag is absolutely fair. It should also be noted that Xiaomi is releasing the TV in a very timely manner, along with the release of a new generation of consoles. And the presence of an HDMI 2.1 port is a good reason to choose Xiaomi, not Samsung.

In general, if you (like me) still have a Full HD TV, then 2021 is the time when it’s time to upgrade to 4K screen. Already, laptops with the release of Nvidia’s 30th series cards are switching to 1440p resolution, and consoles output 120 fps in 4K, and smartphones of even lower price segments have learned to shoot in 4K, and streaming services deliver content in 4K.

What I like most about modern TVs is that they have ceased to be televisions in the usual sense, but have turned into smart screens. Judging by myself. Having moved to Moscow, I, by inertia, transported the TV with me, which eventually stood in a gloomy black square in the corner exactly until the moment I got an Android TV set-top box. I can’t say that I began to use it all the time, but if we compare it with the fact that Toshiba stood for 2 years without even plugged into an outlet, then progress is evident. At the same time, I did not plug in the antenna cable.

However, I installed an application that shows photos from Google Photos, made a selection of 4K videos from Youtube with walks in different cities, museums, collected a catalog of music videos from selections of classics to the so-called coffee jazz. Accordingly, the TV began to play an interior role. I turn it on and go about my business, and there he shows something and purrs.

Tesla and the new Cadillac LYRIQ

A week earlier, Tesla summed up the results of 2020, a significant year in that the company came out in plus for the first time in its history. The event is undoubtedly a landmark, but exactly until the moment when you look at the reporting figures.

Tesla has put out a very nice presentation. With graphs tending upward, with pictures of cars and their interiors. And there are also photographs from factories, how cars are assembled, how new Tesla’s are on the assembly line, how quickly factories are being built in an open field.

In short, you look with bated breath and admire. Not only the pictures are impressive, but also the tables, which describe how many of which Tesla models have been made, how many charging stations and solar panels have been installed. I speak without irony. Here you should learn from Elon Musk’s team, as they turned a boring presentation into an interesting promotional brochure. I especially liked the table comparing the speed performance of the Tesla Model S Plaid and various supercars, including the Bugatti.

The funniest thing about the report, however, is that Tesla is profitable as it sells air pollution quotas to other automakers. As you know, today every production company that pollutes the environment is allocated an emission quota in the amount of which it can do this. Accordingly, if a company needs a larger volume, then it can go to the market and buy from those businesses that do not develop their quotas. By the way, the French even made a film on this topic, how enterprising guys registered fictitious companies with the aim of selling their quotas. And in Russia they are now working on the launch of a law on state regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and this summer they want to test it on the territory of the Sakhalin Region.

If not for the quota trading, by the end of the year Tesla would have recorded about 1 billion in losses (if you subtract the income from quotas from the total profit). In general, the story about trading is old, and it seems that even on Mobile-Review.com we have already analyzed it. I remembered about it because of the growing competition and the announcement of a new electric Cadillac.

Although Elon Musk is a great fellow, his business is perfectly characterized by the phrase of one of the leading Tesla shorts, Gordon Johnson (probably, Mr. Johnson had a very bad year 2020): “These guys are losing money selling cars. And they earn by selling quotas ”. Accordingly, Tesla’s position is still not as strong as we would like it to be. And competition is extremely dangerous for her.

Place	Brand	9 months 2020 years	Market share
1	Tesla	316,820	18%
2	Volkswagen	113,091	6%
3	BYD	104,176	6%
4	BMW	101,270	6%
5	Renault	68,928	4%
6	Mercedes-Benz	68,855	4%
7	Volvo	67,561	4%
8	Audi	67,304	4%
9	Hyundai	63,679	4%
10	Kia	59,840	3%
11	SGMW	58,785	3%
12	SAIC	51,275	3%
13	Peugeot	43,498	2%
14	Nissan	42,181	2%
15	GAC	39,833	2%
16	Toyota	31,101	2%
17	Ford	30,432	2%
18	Mitsubishi	28,208	2%
19	Porsche	27,928	2%
20	Nio	26,498	1%
	other	371,030	21%
	Total	1,784,293	100%

Competition in the electric vehicle market is getting fiercer. Tesla occupies 18% of the global market, and the closest competitor sells 3 times fewer cars. Tesla’s share is set to decline, however, despite rising sales. Firstly, the electric vehicle market itself, which now occupies only 3% of the total car market, will also grow. Secondly, look at how Volkswagen managed to take second place, although the manufacturer has a small range of unsightly electric cars – E-UP and e-Golf, the range of which does not exceed 250 kilometers.

And the cars themselves are frankly scary. However, the affordable price does the trick. However, Volkswagen also has a slightly nicer solution: Volkswagen ID.3 with a power reserve of 320 km and a price of 58 thousand dollars in the most expensive configuration.

Interestingly, in Norway, where the culture of electric cars is developed, the market grew by 54% last year, with cars from Volkswagen taking the first place. The first place in sales is for the Audi e-tron, the second is for Tesla, and the third is also Volkswagen with model ID.3.

At the same time, Tesla is being squeezed in the upper price segments. A few days ago, Cadillac showed an ad for its first electric vehicle, the Cadillac LYRIQ. The company did this during the broadcast of the Super Bowl, that is, the final of the American football championship. The Super Bowl always has great ratings, and the whole country freezes while watching this show, which costs $ 30 million for a 5.5-second commercial. Cadillac LYRIQ roller lasts 1.5 minutes. So this is a loud premiere, and the car cannot be called a walk-through.

Accordingly, this is a loud application. The car is expected to go on sale in late 2022. There is still no reliable information about the prices, except for the one that GM President Steve Carlisle gave back in the summer, they say, the cost will start from below 60 thousand dollars.

The Cadillac LYRIQ must compete with the Tesla Model S. It is clear that Tesla is lacking premium right now. The company simply does not have the resources for this. She needs to build cars quickly. In turn, the Cadillac is now in a deplorable state. The brand lost the luxury car market to BMW and Mercedes. Moreover, the quality of the products decreased, which crippled sales. Accordingly, the launch of electric cars is an opportunity for Cadillac to return and occupy a relatively vacant niche of premium (but not overly expensive) electric cars.

What should impress the Cadillac LYRIQ:

• The power reserve is expected to be about 500 kilometers.
• Noise cancellation system, which should cut off unnecessary noises from the outside, but at the same time leave the sounds necessary for the driver.
• Super Cruise autopilot to avoid touching the steering wheel. In this case, the car itself can be rebuilt depending on the situation on the road. Or you can ask the car to change lanes. To do this, you need to press the turn signal, and then the car itself will choose the moment and rebuild.

Cadillac’s Super Cruise is technically superior to Tesla’s autopilot, but the main difference is that the Cadillacs will have an infrared camera that will ensure that the driver is not too distracted from the road. By the way, it is interesting that (if I understood correctly) the first three years “super cruise” works for free, and then it will be a subscription service with a monthly payment.

Tesla has powerful marketing, a great history, innovative solutions and a charismatic leader. However, it is already clear that competitors are ready to offer more for the same money. And Elon Musk has less and less time to figure out why it will be necessary to buy Tesla in the world of electric cars.

Tesla invested in bitcoins

Continuing the topic – great news that Tesla has invested $ 1.5 billion in bitcoins. It will also accept payments in this currency in the future. After that, the cryptocurrency jumped up by 10%. Elon Musk recently sent another cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, into the heavens with his tweet.

In general, Elon Musk is doing everything right. If you can’t make money on cars, then you need to invest profitably. And the bitcoin market is good because no securities commission will come and accuse of manipulation. Although this is it. It is also important to note that Tesla did not buy bitcoins for 1.5 billion, but made a deal in which it can buy bitcoins for this amount at the right time at an agreed price.

Laptop market results 2020

The pandemic year has been a blessing for the stagnant laptop market, forcing renewal for many who have not previously paid much attention to the home computer.

World market:

Company	2020 Shipments (thousand pieces)	2020 market share (%)	2019 Shipments (thousand pieces)	2019 market share (%)	2020-2019 growth (%)
Lenovo	68,507	24.9	63,182	24.1	8.4
HP Inc.	58,357	21.2	57,949	22.1	0.7
Dell	45,029	16.4	44,095	16.8	2.1
Apple	22,454	8.2	18,337	7	22.5
Acer Group	16,264	5.9	14,743	5.6	10.3
Asus	16,424	6	14,449	5.5	13.7
Other	48,111	17.5	49,797	19	-3.4%
Total	275,147	100	262,552	100	4.8

The situation on the market, I must say, is developing very interesting. On the one hand, we see how more and more smartphone manufacturers are starting the game and offering their options. For example, Nokia has started selling laptops under its own brand, realme is carefully considering this. Huawei / Honor and Xiaomi, like Samsung and LG, have been in this market for a long time.

On the other hand, only the companies from the table are doing well. The share of other manufacturers is declining.

Note, however, that there is a clear leader in the market. If a year earlier it was still possible to say that the lag of HP is insignificant, then 2020 put everything in its place. Lenovo doesn’t just sell well, the company is growing rapidly. Sales of Dell and HP remained at about the same level, in contrast to Lenovo, which shipped 5.3 million more notebooks. And Lenovo’s success is not undeserved. To some extent, Lenovo has become the main news provider in the notebook market. The company is actively experimenting. Last year we saw laptops with flexible screens, laptops with different finishes (yesterday, by the way, we reviewed a model with leather trim), and laptops not only with built-in stylus, but also with headphones.

US market:

Company	Q4 2020 Shipments (thousand units)	Q4 2020 market share (%)	Q4 2019 Shipments (thousand units)	Q4 2019 market share (%)	Q4 2020 – Q4 2019 growth (%)
HP Inc.	5,323	28	4,884	31	9
Dell	4,792	25.2	4,192	26.6	14.3
Lenovo	3,460	18.2	2,458	15.6	40.8
Apple	2,713	14.3	2,055	13	32
Microsoft	1,010	5.3	836	5.3	20.8
Other	1,730	9.1	1,352	8.6	28
Total	19,029	100	15,778	100	20.6

In this regard, the US market is especially interesting. First, notice that Microsoft. Second, Lenovo is in third place in the US. And then the question arises why the United States is against Huawei, TikTok, Xiaomi, but not against Lenovo. Unlike Huawei, which has always talked about its independence, Lenovo is not shy about the fact that the Chinese government owns its share. At the same time, the company’s products are purchased by the US Department of Defense, the Air Force, and the governments of many states.

Even revelatory articles do not prevent Lenovo from living well. Like the Washington Times story that state-government-purchased Lenovo computers send data to China.

By the way, probably now the United States would not have allowed IBM to sell its division to the Chinese.

Lenovo itself actively says that it is an international company that has two headquarters: in Beijing and in North Carolina.

Frankly, I have no answer to the question why the sanctions bypass Lenovo. Perhaps the whole point is that the Chinese themselves do not consider Lenovo to be a Chinese company. On business trips, representatives from two different Chinese companies described Lenovo as a fake Chinese company. They say that foreigners are in charge there. Partially it is. The company is actively attracting foreigners to management positions. For example, Gianfranco Lanci has been in charge of the PC division for a long time. In general, there are many foreigners on the board. Of the 14 board members, only 7 are Chinese + Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo.

At the same time, as former employees anonymously point out, the company has a focus on emphasizing the “Americanization” of products. Although the actual production and development are in China.

In 2020, Lenovo overclocked. 2021 promises to be no worse. I wonder to what level Lenovo needs to grow to fall under US sanctions?

Instead of a conclusion: an interview with Elon Musk that is worth watching

And finally, I would recommend Elon Musk’s interview as extracurricular material, demonstrating what an amazing person he is. Elon Musk agreed to a dialogue interview with Sandy Munroe.

Sandy Munroe is a 72-year-old grandfather who has worked most of his life in the automotive industry. He worked as a production engineer at Ford, achieved career success there, and then in 1988 founded his own consulting company that specializes in production optimization, layer-by-layer analysis (a method of studying a competitor’s product in order to identify opportunities to improve it and / or reduce its cost) and etc.

Mr. Munro is a long-time and consistent opponent of Tesla, criticizing both manufacturing defects and poor-quality assembly with gaps (on the one hand there are gaps, but on the other hand there are no gaps – how is this even possible, Mr. Munroe wonders in an interview).

Munroe and Musk had a pretty frank conversation. To begin with, Elon Musk did not try to play around, but from the doorway said that Munro’s criticism was fair, and then talked about the difficulties that they had to overcome in organizing production. The conversation turned out to be very detailed, including topics about the fact that, for example, the back of the Tesla Model Y is too complicated with an abundance of unnecessary components and why this was done (Musk said that they work and new models already have 17 welds, not 26 , as it was before).

I liked the interview most of all in terms of marketing and PR-component. Musk is very charming and openly able to answer even the most difficult questions.

The interview lasts about 50 minutes, and I do not think it is correct to retell it within the framework of this material. If you are interested, then unsubscribe in the comments. Then I’ll make a summary and release it on Monday as an article on Android.Mobile-Review.com.

Back to content >>>

Share: 

we are in social networks:

Anything to add ?! Write … eldar@mobile-review.com