2015: Will smartphones enter the borderless era?

CES2015 (International Consumer Electronics Show) held in Las Vegas, USA has come to an end. As one of the world's largest consumer technology product trade shows, the main leading products in the 4G era are still very eye-catching. Looking back at previous sessions, the launch of octa-core mobile phones at the 2011 CES ended the era of dual-core mobile phones. In 2012, mobile payment and 720P resolution screens became popular; 2013 was the year of mobile phone product upgrades; 2014 was the "octa-core" war. Entering 2015, concepts such as ultra-thin, curved screens and borderless designs are popular.

For a while, people thought that there would be no flagship mobile phone products after iPhone 4S. Although this statement is biased, iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S did not surpass anything. In the iPhone 6 era, the iPhone 6 Plus, which is more than just big, was the only one to hold its head, but some markets were not interested in more than just big. Although the Galaxy Note Edge launched by Samsung brought a curved design concept, it still did not set off a whirlwind in the market. Is it really difficult to break through the design of smartphones? Are there no better design concepts and means in terms of craftsmanship and technology? The answer is of course no. The market has once again focused on smartphone design, and this time the focus is on the borderless design concept. In fact, in summary, the concept of borderless has been proposed in the past two years, but due to the difficulty in making breakthroughs in craftsmanship and technology, no truly beautiful products have been launched, which has also gradually reduced the outside world's expectations for borderless phones.

In addition, as the development of smart phones becomes faster and faster, the homogeneity of products becomes more serious. How to stand out from similar products becomes very important. The preferences and concepts of users also determine that the appearance of the product is, to a certain extent, a stepping stone to the market. Therefore, ultra-thin, extremely ultra-thin, and narrow-framed smart phones have become the key to competition among many manufacturers. Of course, price is also the fundamental reason for the struggle. Now is likely to be the year when borderless design becomes popular. In other words, appearance may become extremely important in 2015.

Why do I say so? The author observes that there are several factors that influence this. One is that the design concept needs to break the ice. Do you still remember the very awesome movie "Interstellar"? Some people say that the development of smart phones is like human exploration and conjecture of "multi-dimensional space", which is full of difficulties and challenges. Now that the functional technologies such as pixel technology, appearance design, and fingerprint recognition have been satisfied, the unchanging thinking mode may start with breaking the ice of appearance. Make borderless possible, this is the trend and trend in 2015. The market once also rumored that Apple iPhone 7 might have a borderless design. In addition, spy photos of Xiaomi 5, OPPO Find9, Huawei and other mobile phones have begun to appear quietly.

The second is that the era of homogeneity requires the emergence of new and unique product concepts. As we all know, the current homogeneity of mobile phones is very serious. If you want to win the favor of users, you need to launch products that are more attractive to users. The advantage of borderless design is that it can bring a new experience to users, which can greatly improve the user's visual aesthetic experience. The larger screen-to-body ratio and larger visual space will bring users an unprecedented visual experience. This kind of infinite visual expansion is unmatched by all previous mobile phones. The "blasting" at the critical point of the edge, whether in scenes such as watching movies, games, or social applications, the larger visual space will only fill the user's infinite imagination of the vast visual space and improve the user's pleasure in the intelligent experience.

The third is that the progress of technology has broken through the critical point. It is reported that with the breakthrough of On-cell technology, some process manufacturing companies have made breakthroughs in the borderless design problem. Several borderless design schemes and several experimental results show that the realization of borderless design is only a matter of time. It is rumored that there is technology that can make the touch screen thinner and lighter, only 0.5 mm (the thinnest traditional touch screen is 1 mm), which will enable mobile phone manufacturers to design thinner smartphones while accommodating larger batteries. It is conceivable that further technological exploration can truly realize borderless design. We know that borderless design means that we must first overcome the problems of edge mis-touch and screen fragility. If we want to break through the constraints of the frame, we must make breakthroughs and innovations in the current industrial design in the industry. For smartphones to overcome technical factors such as mishandling of grip, screen reliability, and reasonable structural design, this is a major challenge in the history of human science and technology, and it is also an unprecedented opportunity, because whoever breaks through the constraints of the frame first will occupy a favorable position in the smartphone market. Previously, there was also a suspected exposure of the Xiaomi 5 borderless new phone on the market. The spy photos of the iPhone 7 concept phone also show that Apple is making a borderless layout.

So do domestic mobile phones have a chance? In fact, there were rumors that the iPhone 6 would have a sapphire screen before it was released. But it didn't come true in the end. However, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have products using sapphire screens. This also shows that domestic mobile phone manufacturers are still brave enough to try the application of new technologies. So will borderless smartphones also emerge first from domestic mobile phone manufacturers? This is not impossible, because we have also seen rumors in the market that Xiaomi, Huawei, Nubia and other manufacturers are planning borderless products.

In addition, we also see that among domestic mobile phone brands, Meizu MX5, Huawei Mate8, vivoX7, Samsung S6, Sony Z4, etc. are beginning to "close" to borderless mobile phones. If there is really a manufacturer that directly crosses this threshold and takes the lead in launching borderless mobile phones, it will inevitably set off a new revolution. And then bring about the market's imitation and follow-up strategy. Who will be the first to eat crabs? Xiaomi? Huawei or Nubia? However, what is certain is that with the enhancement of the industry's technical strength and the change of industrial design trends, in this era that values ​​"appearance", "borderless mobile phones" may add a new bright spot to the industry.

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.