Content
- Entertaining infographics
- Xiaomi and Mi-fans
- A couple of thoughts on Xiaomi and the smartphone market
- 11th generation Intel processors
- New processors
- Conclusion about Intel
Entertaining infographics
Watch an entertaining infographic about the development and fall of various mobile operating systems.
Looking at the dynamics makes it much easier to understand why all leaders felt good and calm, not expecting to fall. The growth of the BlackBerry share in general could have caused (and has caused) a certain euphoria among the manufacturer, that this is only the beginning of success. And then a rather precipitous fall. We are waiting for the next hero, who will appear out of nowhere and take a share from Android.
Xiaomi and Mi-fans
Xiaomi is quite kind to the fans of the brand (Mi-fans). In general, the brand is inextricably linked with the fan community. From the very beginning, the company communicates closely with customers, asking them what features to add to their software products. Every year Xiaomi launches Mi Explorers testing programs, in which fans can be among the first to test new devices and give feedback. For example, this was the case with televisions. When we, journalists, were invited to the announcement, I remember that it turned out that for several months local Mi-fans, together with the developers, had been finalizing the product for the Russian market. Such flirting with the community and building relationships always benefits the manufacturer.
By the way, it turns out that there are 1.9 million Mi-fans in Russia. And these are only those who were counted. But there is a huge latent layer of those who actively use the products, but do not consider themselves to be fans.
I can tell you a little about myself. Xiaomi got my attention after the release of the Pocophone F1. A breakthrough smartphone in terms of price / quality ratio that surprised everyone. Before Poco F1, no one believed that it was possible to give flagship hardware for such a price.
By the way, I went to the 2018 Moscow Motor Show with the Pokophone and even made material about the exhibition as part of testing the camera.
In my opinion, over the past couple of years, Xiaomi has grown significantly in terms of user experience, technology advancement, overall product quality. I would like to say that Xiaomi has become a more mature company.
This post is related to the fact that Xiaomi is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. Xiaomi representatives asked for a press release about Mi-fans, saying that it is important for them to tell their stories. At first I wanted to refuse, because this applies to advertising publications. However, I read the stories, saw that they were really written by ordinary Xiaomi fans, and realized that the readers of Mobile-Review.com will get great pleasure from them. As a starting point, I will leave the beginning of such a story (spelling and punctuation are original): “Once I changed an exhausted 3,5 ‘inch Nokia without autofocus for the popular Redmi Note 2 Pro Prime Edition, I got an absolutely unique experience …”. You can find out what kind of unique experience was obtained on the main page. Read stories there, come and discuss here! Feel free to share your unique experiences!
A couple of thoughts on Xiaomi and the smartphone market
Xiaomi’s future cannot be called cloudless. In the home market, Xiaomi, like other local companies, is ruthlessly terrorized by a locked-down Huawei. An unpleasant situation, since the Chinese market brings 55% of the revenue and is much more profitable than all other markets. The reason is that “services” (despite strong growth in other markets) are still mostly tied to China. And services bring the company 50% of the net profit, the other half comes from the sale of smartphones and “smart” gadgets. Xiaomi needs to actively develop a full-fledged service component outside the home market, not limited to advertising integrations.
On the other hand, the company is doing quite well in the European market, in many respects, by the way, due to the departure of Huawei. The company grew by 65% (yoy) and took 17% of the market, that is, the third place.
Xiaomi has worked well in the Russian market as well. It should be noted here that Xiaomi’s success in unit sales is due to the growing demand for inexpensive smartphones. So, IDC notes that the average price of a smartphone in the second quarter of 2020 decreased by 8% to $ 155. Counterpoint and Canalys’ scores differ slightly, but yeah, you get it right that Samsung had a tough second quarter when measured in pieces. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that Samsung is quite hard to fight with Huawei and Xiaomi, which produce a much wider range of similar devices, while Samsung has only the A-series on the conventional shelf.
11th generation Intel processors
Intel Evo
Competition is great, after all. Despite the fact that formally Intel is still strong and unshakable, AMD, the market and customers have snapped the company on the nose. As a result, the presentation of the 11th generation of processors turned out to be bright and juicy. And even aggressive, ranging from the number of facts of Intel’s superiority over the whole world, which bombarded the audience, and ending with the name of the new Tiger Lake processors. No more Coffee, Ice or Cascade. Now Tiger. Because the tiger vomits, he’s cool. In Russia it will definitely come, because the right guys are not “Ryazan”, they are tigers.
Intel said they have introduced the best processors for Ultrabooks, which, by the way, don’t forget, are no longer Ultrabooks. Intel did not come up with a capacious term, so it called it mobile & thin (mobile and thin). Correctly say “laptops certified by Intel EVO”.
Intel Evo is the second generation of features for Project Athena. If you have forgotten, then a drop of history. Initially, Intel coined the term “ultrabook”, rolling out the requirements for characteristics, dimensions, battery life, and so on. All this was possible when using Intel processors of the latest (at that time) generation. The initiative was successful. Intel has invested a lot of resources into promotion, and, as you can see, the term “ultrabook” has even become a household name.
Intel Evo logo
However, due to the stagnation of the PC market, the development of laptops has also slowed down. The quality of laptops has reached a certain level, and manufacturers did not seek to install the most up-to-date hardware. And, relatively speaking, even the 10th generation of processors stalled slightly, because many manufacturers initially preferred to install a more stable and understandable 8th generation.
To solve the problem, Intel came up with the Athena project, presented in January 2019. So, certified laptops had to guarantee excellent battery life, wake up and fall asleep quickly, have Wi-Fi 6, fast memory, etc. The idea is certainly great, but sabotaged by the manufacturers. They saw no motivation to invest so much, given that Intel’s marketing budgets were stingy.
After 1.5 years, Intel introduced the second generation of the specifications. The main changes are the presence of new 11th generation processors with new correct graphics Iris Xe, fast charging via Type-C (4 hours of operation per 30 minutes of charge), Thunderbolt 4 and at least 9 hours of real battery life for Full HD screens …
The idea is that users, seeing the Intel Evo sticker, should immediately understand that this is the coolest mobile & thin book. Intel said most major manufacturers have agreed to participate. And Samsung and ASUS are already releasing new models. In the photo below – ZenBook S.
New design
Along the way, Intel not only made a new logo for the processors, but radically “transformed” the brand. Watch a cool video, they write wonderful there that Intel honors the past and forges the future.
Looking at the radical visual update, for some reason I involuntarily begin to think about the girls who go and make a square to demonstrate internal changes. On the other hand, Intel is entitled. The last time the company was visually updated was in 2006.
Intel itself claims that the new brand reflects the company’s role as a catalyst for technologies that are changing the world.
New processors
In the last year, Intel did not criticize only the lazy, as the company once again postponed the transition to a more advanced technical process. While AMD is releasing its solutions on the 7nm process technology with might and main, playfully hinting that 5nm is almost here. Intel struggled to move from 14nm to 10nm.
However, my sympathies were and remain with Intel, because the company confidently proves that the size of the technical process is not the main thing. And its 10nm is better than the 7nm of the competition. Intel said it had improved its existing manufacturing technology. The improved process technology was named 10nm SuperFin, not 10 ++. This designation has a certain meaning, because when there was a “plug” at 14 nm, the designations for improvements already looked funny and rather reflected the company’s helplessness than its innovativeness – 14+, 14 ++, 14 +++, 14 +++ +.
About 10nm SuperFin itself, the company says it is “the largest single intranode improvement in Intel history.” Intranode refers to the connecting channel between the source and the receiver, that is, in the case of processors, between transistors. Accordingly, Intel has improved cross-country ability. The charge between transistors flies faster. As they promise, thanks to this, the speed of work in office applications will increase by 20% and energy consumption will be reduced (an additional 1 hour of work will be added).
What I’m most excited about is that Intel continues to improve its integrated graphics systematically. The first generation Intel Iris was already good and breathed new life into the traditionally “dead” ultrabooks. We didn’t manage to get much pleasure from AAA games (720p and the lowest settings), but the conventional “tanks” at medium settings were quite possible to run.
The new graphics were named Intel Iris Xe. By the way, in the notation of processors, everything remains the same. And the power of the graphics is written at the end of the name – G7 (the most powerful) and G4.
Intel Iris Xe takes a step forward. It used to be 720p, now Intel promises Full HD. So, Intel promises 60 fps in games of the level of GTA 5. In Borderlands 3 more than 30 fps, Doom Eternal is also 32-33 fps, Fortnite and Wedmak – 50 fps. The quality of the settings is indicated as “average”.
Thus, it turns out that the integrated graphics from Intel are in no way inferior to the discrete MX350 from Nvidia.
Along the way, Intel “punishes” AMD Ryzen 7 4800U.
Conclusion about Intel
Of course, we have to wait for the tests, but the announced victory over AMD looks extremely inspiring. After all, whatever one may say, the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U is a processor made according to the next generation process technology, which, from an ordinary point of view, should mean total superiority. However, Intel demonstrates that the potential of the 10nm process is far from being depleted.
This story provokes reflections, but are manufacturers really doing the right thing to chase a generational change?
Recently, the battery capacity of the new iPhone 12 leaked to the network. Imagine what a scream it would be if Samsung released a smartphone with such a battery. Relatively small batteries, but thanks to the maximum optimization, I am sure that the iPhone will not lose in autonomy. Apple has shaped its protective armor of the Apple brand when iPhones are not judged head-on by performance. People are not interested in what kind of chipset or RAM size there is. Other manufacturers, including Intel, do not have such armor, as a result, they are forced to thoughtlessly drive forward for the sake of some formal new frontiers, solving issues not by working on errors, but by a gross increase in performance. Not sure if this is the right approach, are you?
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