Sony's new 4K HDR flagship Z9D released: Will it stick to its craftsmanship or bow to the market?

After China fully entered the Internet era, the Internet has gradually integrated into people's lives. Relying on the development of the Internet, people no longer rely solely on television media to obtain information. People can access the Internet through mobile phones and tablets anytime and anywhere to use fragmented time to learn about news. The era when television was an important information output tool is gone forever. On the contrary, the idea of ​​using television as a traffic entrance in the living room has gradually become a consensus among TV manufacturers.

The Internetization of the TV Industry Becomes a Trend

Under the impact of the Internet, the television industry has seen the trend of intelligent television even earlier than many traditional television manufacturers. They abandoned the profit model of traditional television and, relying on the Internet economic model, connected television to the Internet to introduce new content, full HD 3D games, home KTV and other entertainment and information functions, so that television is no longer simply for receiving TV programs, but has become a new form of entertainment. Smart TV has therefore come into being.

In 2015, the market penetration rate of smart TVs was 84.5%. It is expected that smart TVs will become popular in China in 2016. With the continuous improvement of the functions of smart TVs and the rapid development of multi-screen interactive technology, smart TVs are being chosen by more and more consumers, which has also caused changes in family viewing habits. Smart large screens have become the most important entertainment terminal for families. Compared with mobile phones and computers, people prefer to use large screens to enjoy high-definition movies and TV.

In the smart TV market in recent years, Internet companies have relied on their own advantages to effectively integrate resources and content on the Internet and launched products with high cost performance, further squeezing the market share of foreign companies led by Sony. In addition, the price of traditional domestic manufacturers' products of the same size is only half of that of Sony's products. Cost performance has become the first factor that Chinese consumers compare when purchasing smart TVs. Sony has suffered a certain impact in such an environment in China.

The spirit of craftsmanship lasts forever, and only high-quality products are produced

However, with the gradual advancement of Sony's localization, the latest product adopts the Android 6.0 system. With the huge size of Android and Sony's open cooperation with content providers such as Wasu and Sohu in China, it is no longer inferior to domestic manufacturers in terms of network resources. In addition, its partners also include Tencent. Through the massive resources of Tencent QQ Music and Tencent TV Games, Sony TV has become more competitive in China. In terms of core technology, Sony's accumulation over the years has firmly established itself as the world's leading TV industry. At the same time, domestic manufacturers are still constrained by overseas companies in core technologies such as decoding chips and panels. This will gradually make Sony's efforts in the domestic mid-to-high-end market, while the disadvantages brought by the poor brand premium ability and overseas competitiveness of domestic manufacturers will become more and more prominent.

On August 10, 2016, Sony held a new product launch conference in Shanghai with the theme of "Eye-Opening". In this conference, Sony released the latest 4K HDR flagship Z9D series products. The new product has two major features. The first is that it is equipped with the innovative "Backlight Master Drive (Dynamic Backlight System-Master Edition)" technology, which can effectively reduce the common light diffuse reflection phenomenon of LCD TVs, making the TV present a brighter color contrast and a wider color gamut. The second is that the Z9D series uses the new 4K HDR image processing chip X1 Advanced Edition (X1 Extreme™), which is 1.4 times the performance of the previous generation chip, making Sony Z9D have better performance in color, clarity and contrast.

While domestic TV manufacturers have been working hard on software content and making great efforts on CPU and GPU, Sony has been concentrating on the research and development of technology to improve the expressiveness of screen images. TV system software is important, but after all, the core of TV is still display technology. System operations can be completely handed over to cheap products such as TV boxes. In this way, the TV and the box are updated separately, which is more in line with user habits. Although Sony's craftsmanship has hindered Sony's development in the low-end market, it has also helped Sony firmly occupy a favorable position in the mid-to-high-end market with higher profit margins.

Products reflect attitudes, the new emperor "Z9D" series may help Sony rise

After today's press conference, I had the honor of having a brief conversation with a technical engineer from Sony. The engineer said that as a technical R&D staff of Sony, he never cared about market sales and profits, and only focused on display technology R&D and picture adjustment. The engineer also said that although he admired the keen understanding of cost and market of domestic Internet TV manufacturers, although this could help manufacturers seize the TV market in a short period of time, it would completely and permanently destroy the domestic TV industry. Because such a barbaric development model without any technical accumulation will definitely destroy manufacturers with certain technical accumulation and enterprises with ambitions to make high-quality products.

Although the engineer's outspoken and bold remarks are surprising, his statement is not groundless when we think of the many TV manufacturers that have quietly withdrawn from the market in the past two years. The mobile phone industry has just experienced a whirlwind of entering the mid-to-high-end market, and the TV industry must also take this inevitable path. After users have suffered from some cheap products, they will gradually realize the importance of quality.

When Sony chooses to make products, it does not consider sales, prices, trends, but only considers providing consumers with a more extreme experience. This craftsmanship has been recognized by more and more people. In the sales statistics of the first half of this year, Sony's sales of TVs increased by 100,000 units compared with the same period last year, and Sony has also raised its sales profit target for this fiscal year by 5 billion yen accordingly.

At this time, Sony has launched the new 4K HDR flagship TV Z9D series. As we all know, only the cross-era products that embody Sony's core technology will be named "Z" series by Sony, which shows that Sony is full of confidence in the new products and is determined to win the market. Whether the Z9D series TV products equipped with black technologies such as dynamic backlight system and new image processing chip X1 can put Sony back on the throne again, let us wait and see.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.