In order to prepare for the speech (and press conference) at 07:30 on the evening of the 11th, Lei Jun, chairman of XIAOMI Technology, has made frequent moves in Weibo Corp recently and has released several short interview films in succession to answer netizens' questions and warm up for the upcoming speech.

However, on the 9th, Lei Jun made an exception and released an article. The topic mentioned in this article is not the development direction of the company mentioned in the previous short video, but facing netizens' questions about specific products. These questions are probably the questions that rice noodles most want to ask, including sharp topics, and Lei Jun also makes no secret of it and responds to them one by one.

The exit of MIX Alpha

The first is the XIAOMI MIX series. As XIAOMI's high-end concept model, the MIX series has always been the crystallization of XIAOMI's top technology. However, after last year's MIX 3, there has been no news of MIX's fourth-generation models.In this article, Lei Jun mentioned that XIAOMI's next-generation MIX will live up to the expectations of rice noodles, but it will take some time.

Although MIX 4 has been established, the MIX Alpha series, which attracted a lot of attention last year, has officially declared it "cool".. Lei Jun said that MIX Alpha, as a "pre-research project", has successfully achieved its goal, but due to the difficulty of mass production, mass production of MIX Alpha can only be cancelled, and XIAOMI will focus all his energies on MIX 4.

In fact, the cancellation of MIX Alpha has been a sign before, although Lei Jun predicted the "sale at the end of the year", but skipped tickets until this year. In addition to the fact that several digital media released MIX Alpha's first-hand videos in February this year, the exact release date has been delayed.

In May, Zang Zhiyuan, deputy general manager of XIAOMI's marketing department, said in Weibo Corp that XIAOMI MIX Alpha did not have Snapdragon 865version. after that, MIX Alpha prototype pieces began to appear on some third-party websites. As a model that has not yet been released, the MIX Alpha is supposed to be highly confidential and there can be no outflow of loose parts.

In fact, before the outflow of the pieces, Xiao Lei was worried about the mass production of MIX Alpha. At the press conference of MIX Alpha, XIAOMI did not mention the interactive logic of MIX Alpha, but focused more on the breakthrough in hardware design.

However, for the brand-new form of "surround screen", the display purpose of the front and rear screen and the virtual buttons on the side are all inevitable concerns of consumers, but XIAOMI did not discuss them in detail.. To some extent, this reflects that XIAOMI may still be in a state of discussion about the mode of operation of "surround the screen" at the press conference in September last year.

In addition to operating system problems, battery life is also a sore point for MIX Alpha. Because the surround screen needs too many components, it is impossible for MIX Alpha itself to share the volume of some components through expandable forms such as folding screen. As a result, the MIX Alpha has a battery capacity of only 4000 milliamperes-a nearly eight-inch screen that is somewhat stretched in today's flagship market, even if only the front screen size is intercepted (6.6in).

From the disassembly diagram of MIX Alphe, we can see that even if it is a battery of 4000 Ma, XIAOMI is already struggling to adjust the layout.

Therefore, although we regret the cancellation of MIX Alpha, judging from the previous signs, it is unlikely that XIAOMI will continue to "surround the screen" design.. For Xiao Lei, the biggest highlight of Lei Jun's statement is not the cancellation of MIX Alpha, but the fact that the surging chip is still in development.

The surging chip of walking forward

In 2017, after XIAOMI released the original self-developed chip thepaper.cn S1, rumors of thepaper.cn S2 occurred from time to time, but Lei Jun did not continue to announce the details. Lei Jun mentioned in the article that XIAOMI's chip plan has encountered great difficulties after a generation of surging chips, but the self-research chip project is still going on. Please wait for new progress.

From Xiao Lei's previous evaluation of XIAOMI 5c with thepaper.S1, as a medium-and low-end processor, its performance is moderate, but the manufacturing process is relatively backward, resulting in fever and frequency reduction still exist in the actual experience. As XIAOMI's first chip answer paper, thepaper.cn S1 still has a lot of room for improvement.

Last year, the pine cone company acquired by XIAOMI was split and reorganized to form Nanjing Dayu Company, and XIAOMI's research and development team focused on AIoT processors. Although XIAOMI bought stakes in several chip companies one after another, he did not publicly announce other plans.

In the final analysis, the successor of thepaper.cn S1 is still difficult to research and development. Lei Jun said that thepaper.cn S1 spent 1 billion yuan on XIAOMI and established the project for 28 months, which is based on the fact that pinecone already had a preliminary prototype before it was acquired, which shows the difficulty of developing mobile phone chips.

Take rival Huawei, for example, Hayes (previously focused on security) first released its consumer-oriented processor K3 in 2009, and it was not until three years later that Huawei officially released its first-generation self-developed processor K3V2. Although the K3V2 is of great historical significance, it is also accompanied by consumer controversy that Kirin 920 officially entered the high-end mobile phone market in 2014.

After that, Huawei also experienced a series of disturbances, such as the adjustment of the manufacturing process and the abolition of Kirin 940. The Kirin 950 processor, which was released at the end of 2015, finally established the position of Kirin processor as a "three heroes" in the high-end market.

It took Huawei six years from the release of the first mobile phone chip to its official foothold. For XIAOMI, who is not deeply rooted in the processor field, it will take several generations of models to develop a flagship chip that can compete with Qualcomm Inc.

In addition to the difficulty of manufacturing, Lei Jun may have commercial considerations to postpone the release of thepaper2.

It is undeniable that the sales of XIAOMI 5c with thepaper.cn S1 are mediocre, although considering the cost of research and development, S1 itself is very difficult to get back to the original. However, the quality of business performance will directly affect the company's strategic orientation (XIAOMI is a listed company), but also affect consumer confidence. If you want to do it, just do it well. This is the conclusion drawn by Lei Jun after experiencing the business failure of surging S1.

It is gratifying that after experiencing surging S1, XIAOMI can still adhere to the road of independent research and development. At present, due to the uncertainty of international relations, and in order to improve the comprehensive experience of software and hardware of mobile phones, XIAOMI and OPPO have been laid out in processor research and development. Although this is bound to be a bumpy road, the courage of these domestic manufacturers is still worthy of our praise.

The question of the tenth anniversary

In fact, it is a bit of a cold water to publish such an article the day before the tenth anniversary celebration. The commercial achievements of MIX and thepaper.cn are not excellent, and Lei Jun must know that.

However, Xiao Lei believes that the reason why Lei Jun has made no secret of the ups and downs experienced by XIAOMI is precisely XIAOMI's firm determination to step into the high end.. For climbers, temporary failure does not determine success or failure. Only by disdaining difficulties in mentality and challenging difficulties tactically, is it possible to overlook the good scenery on the peak of science and technology. I am afraid this is the spiritual theme of XIAOMI in the next decade: optimism and bravery.

I believe Lei Jun can give us more surprises in tonight's Toastmasters. Let us see a XIAOMI looking into the distance and full of ambition.