Two folding screens, a tablet and a brand new and surprising notebook are the absolute protagonists of Honor’s press conference. So far, Honor has stabilized the rhythm of various important product lines and has also established product strategies for the future. Folding screens are definitely an important part of this, and Honor is gradually beginning to lead the direction of the industry.
Why do we use the word “stabilizing” to describe it? In fact, the Magic V series has undergone many adjustments in product rhythm and positioning. For example, Magic Vs was initially a slightly modified version of the Magic V or a more powerful version, and then it was adjusted in Magic V2 and Magic Vs2, the latter becoming a “youth version” and not released at the same time. Now Magic V3 and Magic Vs3 have completed the differentiation of product positioning and met with users at the same time, forming a folding screen product matrix together with V Purse and Magic V Flip. In my opinion, Honor has entered a new stage.
Interestingly, this conference brought many new products, but the pace of the conference was quite fast, taking about 100 minutes, which is definitely fast for some brands that can talk about one product for two hours. Therefore, we also saw a lot of questions about the products in the group interview after the conference, and I can clearly feel that there are fewer panacea questions this time. These questions are very targeted and not so “watery”. Of course, CNMO Technology has also selected some questions with high information concentration to share with readers.
Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor Device Co., Ltd.
The first question of the whole audience was very interesting – will there be a Porsche version of Magic V3? Mingge gave a very straightforward answer – “There is no Porsche version of this year’s Honor Magic V3 generation.” He said that the Porsche version of Magic V2 was released in January this year, and the Porsche version of Magic 6 was released in March. “We will keep it for the next flagship product and release the Porsche (version).” So Mingge has kept it a secret. This matter can be viewed from two perspectives. The first is the adjustment of rhythm, which should be a problem of project time. The Magic V2 Porsche design was released separately later, while the Magic 6 series was announced together. This may be an adjustment of the product rhythm. Secondly, because the launch time of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip this year is likely to continue to be advanced, the new generation of flagship models of each company will speed up. Perhaps it is not impossible for the Magic 7 series to meet us in December. Of course, these are all my personal guesses.
Then someone asked about the challenges Magic V3 will face, because there will be more manufacturers updating their folding screen product lines in the future. I want Mingge to predict whether the record of the lightness and thinness of the Magic V3 can be broken? It can be broken in a few months.
Mingge said that he didn’t particularly care whether the record could be maintained for another year. When we released Magic V2, we predicted that it would be 10 months if we were optimistic. We didn’t expect it to be 12 months and we broke it ourselves. He also mentioned that he joked at the press conference that if Magic Vs3 was released first and then Magic V3, it would be breaking the record twice. “We are more concerned about how the development of foldable screens can make its definition the same as that of candy-bar phones.” “We are not simply pursuing thinness, but combining thinness and power into one.” These two sentences left a deep impression on me. It can be seen that Honor has no burden on the thinnest foldable screen record. It just thinks that this is an important part of improving the experience and product strength. If thinner is not for the pure pursuit of digital breakthroughs, it is the guarantee of product strength.
The topic of tri-fold products was also mentioned at the scene. Mingge should have been prepared for this. He said that this question had been asked before during the trip to Qinghai Lake. This is not a technical problem. Tri-fold is a combination of two rotating shafts, but the shape may be “G” or “Z”. Honor has already completed these technically, so the launch of tri-fold products is “not a technical issue for Honor, but a business choice issue.”
There was also a common topic at the scene, which was Apple. After all, Apple has not launched a folding screen product until now. Although there have been a lot of news intermittently, it seems that it will not be seen in the short term. If Apple launches a folding screen, will it put pressure on patents and domestic manufacturers?
Ming Ge made it clear at the beginning that we should not speculate too much about things that have not happened, and there is no point in speculating what the opponent will do. From the perspective of the patent layer, Honor has a layout in various technologies and forms. He said that every technical route has uncertainty, and it is impossible for the layout of every technical route to go 100%. But in fact, Ming Ge also expressed his expectation that Apple can develop a folding screen product that is very unique to it, to compete directly with Honor. Ming Ge also confidently said that now “the folding screen should have reached or even exceeded many experiences of Apple iPhone Pro Max.”
Finally, let’s talk about the new series of MagicBook Art notebooks. In my opinion, Honor MagicBook Art 14 is like One More Thing. I am very interested in why Art was chosen instead of the commonly used Air. After all, this is a notebook that focuses on extreme lightness and thinness.
Ming Ge said that there were many alternative names internally, and the final choice was between Art and Air. The reason for choosing Art is that Honor hopes to use the logic and concept of mobile phone products to redefine notebooks according to our own understanding. The word “Air” is not enough to carry Honor’s understanding of notebooks. Lightness is only one of its characteristics. We hope that it can become a work of art. This is also an important reason why we finally chose “Art”.
When asked about the comparison with competitors’ products, the weight is still a little heavier. Mingge immediately said that 1.03kg and 0.98kg are actually only 50 grams different, “What’s there to argue about 50 grams?” He said that the Honor MagicBook Art 14 has a larger screen size, a larger touchpad, and richer interface configurations, and even joked, “With such a powerful MagicBook Art 14, what else do you need a bicycle for?”
Honor is really honest in this regard. The PPT at the press conference clearly marked the basic weight information of the three models, and it was marked in a very conspicuous position, which shows that Honor did not avoid the weight difference. At the same time, the ingenuity of the magnetic camera really surprised me when I saw it for the first time, including more comprehensive and practical interfaces. In my opinion, these may be more difficult to achieve than the 50-gram weight, and are more meaningful to me personally.
In fact, throughout the group interview, I could see that Mingge’s answers were full of confidence. Just as I analyzed at the beginning, this time point is more like the beginning of the second stage for Honor. Let us look forward to seeing whether the Magic digital series can bring us more surprises within the year.
