Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 15 The Advantages of Oranges

In Orange Technology's small workshop, Chen Mo was still talking at length about the specific optimizations to the "Orange OS 1.0 system".

Zhao Tiezhu knew better than anyone that the path of smartphones was fraught with thorns and dangers, and that many industry giants had failed and sunk on it.

Just a few days ago, international electronics giant Sansilicon made a strong debut with its Wave S8500.

At the press conference, reporters' flashes went off as the 3.3-inch Super AMOLED screen shone brightly under the spotlights, its 480×800 pixel resolution making the picture so detailed it felt like being there in person.

The powerful performance of the 1GHz processor was touted as miraculous by Sanjing's marketing team, as if this phone would usher in a new era of smart technology.

With its self-developed "Bada OS 1.0 system," Sanjing is ambitious and still hoping to grab a share of the smartphone market.

However, reality dealt them a heavy blow.

The ecosystem of "Bada OS 1.0" is like a barren desert, with very few applications. Even with Sanjing's desperate subsidies for creators, there are still fewer than 1000 applications, which is far from meeting the needs of users.

Moreover, the touch response of the Sanjing Wave S8500 has a serious delay, making it very laggy to operate. Its smoothness is worlds apart from that of Android devices of the same period.

Lacking a robust ecosystem and prone to lag, this phone quickly faded into obscurity as users complained.

Let's rewind the clock to two months ago, in March.

Fantasy, a domestic technology giant, also harbored aspirations for smartphones and launched what it claimed to be the first domestically produced smartphone – the Fantasy Leji.

At the launch event, the executives of Fantasy were full of confidence, talking at length about their self-developed L-OS system, the pride of the nation, and proudly demonstrating the pioneering full-screen gesture operation that would only become popular in later generations, attempting to lead the industry trend.

However, they overlooked a crucial factor—pricing.

Although L-OS is relatively smooth, its exorbitant price and poor system ecosystem still deter ordinary consumers.

Even with numerous highlights, this mobile phone struggled to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive market of high-end flagship feature phones, ultimately ending in failure and becoming a negative example in the industry.

Before the "Pingguo 4" revolutionized the mobile phone market in early June 2010, smartphones were not only being made by mobile phone manufacturers, but also by people from other industries.

Google, the creator of the Android system, also couldn't resist the allure of the smartphone market and tried to get a piece of the pie.

In January of this year, they shelved their best native Android 2.1.3 system.

Google Nexus One, based on Android 2.1.3, has been launched.

This phone boasts impressive specifications, including a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 480×800 pixels, a high-performance QSD8250 processor with a 1GHz operating frequency, 512MB RAM + 512MB ROM, and a 500-megapixel camera.

The software system updates are given high priority, the touch smoothness is superior to other models of the same period, and it also supports multi-tasking split screen.

In its initial release, thanks to its powerful configuration and Google's brand influence, it did attract the attention of many tech enthusiasts.

However, the good times didn't last long. Hardware problems gradually surfaced, and the screen seemed to be under a curse, burning out in less than half a month.

High repair costs and frequent malfunctions have drawn complaints from users, shattering Google's dream of owning a smartphone.

Zhao Tiezhu was filled with worry, even if, as Brother Chen said, that Apple company could launch a market-disrupting smartphone in early June.

But how can Orange Technology, a small and insignificant workshop in North China, compete with those major domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers, or even cross-industry system manufacturers?
Based on that new battery that Brother Chen mentioned, which hasn't even been tested in the market yet?

Zhao Tiezhu felt things were getting a bit risky!
It's important to understand that even though these major manufacturers are latecomers, they each have their own advantages in manufacturing smartphones.

The Super Screen from Sanjing excels in color reproduction and contrast.

The nationwide network of offline computer stores allows products to quickly reach consumers. Google, with its built-in Android system, has already attracted countless developers, creating a vast application ecosystem.

Moreover, users are not very accepting of smartphones now, and some even reject them.

Users don't care about your difficulties; their requirements for "smart" phones are both simple and challenging.

Without a physical keyboard, the built-in keyboard in Android's native system for typing Chinese characters is so difficult to use that it's maddening.

To use your own installed input method application, you have to manually switch to multitasking mode and then open the input method.

The cumbersome process of typing is enough to make 60% of users lose patience.

As for the remaining 40%, they will not choose smartphones at all; they are waiting for the advent of handwriting input methods and voice input methods.

Moreover, the lag in smartphones is now a fatal problem.

This relates to the heart of the phone – the processor – which is unable to handle the increased data processing required by modern smartphones.

With processors of the same performance, capacitive screens require more computing resources to respond to touch, causing many early smartphones to be incredibly slow and laggy, even less usable than feature phones.

This was almost a common problem for most early knock-off smartphones that imitated the Apple 4.

To solve the problem of lag and crashes, these counterfeit phones have made their back covers removable, allowing users to easily remove the battery and restart the device in critical situations.

This became a major "feature" of the knock-off smartphones that imitated the Apple 4 in that era. Later, when the performance of the general-purpose processor from Lianfa Technology improved, the knock-off smartphones gradually changed to non-removable batteries.

However, as Zhao Tiezhu thought about it, he also realized that the Orange 1st generation still had a very prominent advantage after being converted into a smartphone.

The failed smartphones that Zhao Tiezhu mentioned earlier were all built as flagship phones, with an average price of over 4000 yuan.

This is an astronomical price for the average consumer.

Android has always been a high-end system, never reaching the 1,000 yuan market, let alone below 500 yuan.

As wheat users often joke, "As long as the price is cheap enough, even if it explodes, you'll still praise it for how loudly it explodes!"

Moreover, Chen Mo was using a high-tech gaseous lithium battery developed by the system, which is far safer than lithium batteries on the market, so there is no need to worry about explosion.

At 499 yuan, and it's safe and won't explode, what more could you ask for?

This is arguably the biggest advantage of the Orange 1 phone at present.

Those with better specifications are more expensive.

There's no one making a device with similar specifications yet.

Even if it were rushed to completion, the Orange 1 phone, with some of its features derived from the mature design of the later "Orange 4," would inevitably fall short in terms of details.

Moreover, the Orange 1 phone has its own core advantages: it can fully charge from 0% to 100% in 30 seconds, and its security is also guaranteed.

就问你，现在平果4动辄要4~5个小时才能充满电，高频使用下的续航才到6~8小时，你怎么跟我30秒快充比。

Well, although the Orange 1 phone's high-frequency battery life isn't as good as the Apple 4, it charges faster!

It charges quickly. It's fully charged in just 30 seconds!
(End of this chapter)