Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 102 Aluminum Alloy Body Breakthrough

Xu Shenxue took over a silver-gray body, which had obviously undergone many drops and scratches, so it looked a bit unsightly.

There are very obvious signs of slight deformation on the four corners, and the scratches on the back are also very obvious.

The scratches are obviously from light to heavy, and a variety of materials were changed for testing.

Feng Wenbo said: "In the scratch test, we used common keys in daily life, sand and other materials with relatively high hardness to simulate scratches. The test results show that it has met our requirements!"

"The slight friction and scratching in daily life generally won't leave obvious scratches. Of course, scratches will still appear if you use force... But this can meet daily needs and is more durable than the many engineering plastics we currently use!"

"In terms of anti-bending performance, as long as it is not dropped hard, dropped from too high a place or other violent means, it will basically not cause obvious bending of the body."

"Although there are still slight folds at the four corners, they are within controllable range and will not affect the overall performance of the fuselage, causing deformation, detachment, instability, or even damage to the internal structure of the fuselage!"

"Overall, this aluminum alloy body has met our design standards!"

Xu Shenxue asked: "What about the production cost?"

Feng Wenbo said: "The improvement this time is mainly in the material formula, and the manufacturing process does not need to change too much. With the existing equipment in our factory, we can carry out mass production, and the cost is also within a controllable range!"

"Of course, the existing equipment in our factory can only manufacture pure aluminum alloy fuselages, and the entire fuselage back cover also has a glass cover. If we want to produce the fuselage back cover ourselves, we need to purchase some additional equipment and process it before we can produce an integrated fuselage back cover!"

Xu Shenxue said: "If there are no technical problems, then we can purchase equipment, build a production line, and make a batch of samples for testing!"

"If there are no problems with the subsequent tests, we will directly mass produce and prepare for use!"

"For the specific details, please communicate with Mr. Gu!"

Vice President Gu Zhiming is responsible for the entire supply chain. The rear cover of the fuselage is also an important component, and he is responsible for both procurement and supply.

Even though Anlong Precision is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zhiyun Technology, it still has to be included in the supply chain system and cannot come alone.

Feng Wenbo said: "I understand. I will discuss this with Mr. Gu later!"

Afterwards, Xu Shenxue watched the tests many times in person, and even tried it himself. He took out his key and scratched the body of the machine, then threw it hard to the ground!
The result was very good. Although it was not to the point where there was no damage at all, it basically met his expectations for the aluminum alloy body.

"Very good, now the fuselage problem is finally solved!" Xu Shenxue was in a good mood as he looked at the aluminum alloy fuselage that remained intact and not deformed after all the damage he had done.

"Thank you colleagues from Anlong Precision for your hard work. All colleagues in the R&D department of Anlong Precision who participated in the development of the fuselage, your performance in May will double!"

"I hope you will continue to work hard to solve the problem of coloring the aluminum alloy body as soon as possible!"

Feng Wenbo looked bitter at this time: "This coloring is still quite difficult. We use the anodizing process. Currently, the only colorants that can be used for anodizing are silver-gray and black. No other colorants that can be used for anodizing have been developed yet!"

Now, after a lot of research and development, Anlong Precision has only solved two color schemes, one of which is the silver-gray color that Xu Shenxue is seeing now.

This is relatively simpler.

The other is black, which is relatively easier to make.

But apart from these two colors, Anlong Precision's R&D personnel found it difficult to come up with more color combinations...all kinds of attempts and all kinds of failures!
At this time, Feng Wenbo continued: "In addition, the anodizing process is also prone to paint peeling, but we adopted a multi-layer anodizing process to repeat the coloring process, which successfully solved this problem, but this also led to a certain increase in costs!"

"Of course, the overall cost is still within our cost budget!"

Xu Shenxue asked, "The gold and pink colors I mentioned before are still unavailable?"

Feng Wenbo said: "Not yet, and I'm afraid I can't give a specific time. After all, this involves material research and development... and material research and development..."

Feng Wenbo didn't say it explicitly, but Xu Shenxue knew what he wanted to say. It was nothing more than that in addition to funds and personnel, luck actually plays a very important part in material research and development.

If you're lucky, you can succeed by trying a few recipes of ingredients.

If you are unlucky, even testing a thousand or even ten thousand material formulas may not work!

To engage in material research and development, one must have good character...

Xu Shenxue was a little disappointed when he heard this. He had wanted to come up with two color combinations, gold and rose pink, to reap a wave of sales.

The future flagship phone that Xu Shenxue is making this time is basically based on the original Fruit 5 in every aspect, especially the exterior design. Except for the three capacitive touch buttons on the chin replacing the iconic round buttons of Fruit, everything else is almost identical. This is because Xu Shenxue copied the Fruit 5/5S from his memory.

The huge market acceptance of this type of appearance design has been proven in the original time and space, so there is no reason for Xu Shenxue not to use it.

不仅仅是5/5S，徐申学还准备用6、6S以及7这一系列的经典造型呢。

This is called taking the path of the fruit, leaving the fruit with nowhere to go…

Of course, it won't really leave people with no way out, because when it comes to appearance design, you copy me, I copy you... and mobile phones will tend to be highly similar in the later stages.

It's just a mobile phone. Given the hardware conditions of the same era, what other designs can you make? They are basically the same.

Unfortunately, without the gold and rose pink colors, it lacks some flavor.

But it doesn’t matter if you don’t have these two color schemes. Silver-gray and black are enough for the early stages, and you can add more colors later.

Now that the body problem has been solved, Xu Shenxue took the opportunity to visit other project teams, but there is not much to say about these future flagship phone projects.

Basically, they are conducting various tests... because the main core components, from SOC to running memory, storage flash memory, screen, touch IC, power management chip, glass cover, motor, camera lens, and even LED flash, are basically all imported.

Only the three-section aluminum alloy fused with glass back cover body is developed by Zhiyun Technology itself... In the entire mobile phone, except for the system, this is the only thing that can be considered as Zhiyun Technology's exclusive technology.

By the way, in the process of Anlong Precision developing aluminum alloy bodies, it applied for a large number of patents for materials and exclusive processes... It is impossible for other mobile phone manufacturers to use the same aluminum alloy body... They can only develop similar new materials and then slowly figure it out.

This thing is difficult to handle in the first place, and Enron Precision has added a bunch of patents to block many feasible routes...so there are not many options left for latecomers.

In the short term, it is unlikely that other mobile phone manufacturers will be able to break through the patent wall set up by Enron Precision and develop their own usable aluminum alloy bodies.

This means that in the future, maybe one or two years, or maybe two or three years, this thing will become a relatively unique and advantageous technology for Zhiyun mobile phones.

This actually plays a very important role in shaping high-end brands.

Just think about it... When the streets are full of plastic-shelled mobile phones, there is someone walking around with a thin, beautiful, and high-quality aluminum alloy phone... Regardless of whether it attracts other people's attention or not, the owner of the phone can get a certain sense of satisfaction.

Give users a certain sense of satisfaction, or even a sense of superiority... This is the effect that any high-end brand product must achieve.

Without this effect, users will not be willing to pay a premium for your so-called high-end products.

As for what you said about lowering the price... and improving the cost-effectiveness, that's even more problematic... If we really want to improve the cost-effectiveness, wouldn't this future flagship phone have to sell for more than two thousand?
The Zhiyun flagship phone that costs more than 2,000 yuan is so disgusting that even dogs would hate it!

Just like C1 Pro, many users who currently buy Zhiyun C1 Pro models are not attracted by its performance, but by its price of 3799 and unique color scheme.

Therefore, the 1GB and 8GB versions of C16 can be sold at a lower price later, but the Pro version cannot. It must stay at the price of 3799 and cannot be reduced by a penny...

Once the price is reduced, the high-end brand image that has been built with great difficulty will collapse in a matter of minutes.

Therefore, Zhiyun Technology would rather stop production of C1 Pro after autumn and give the corresponding ecological niche to the C2 Pro version.

Price reduction and promotion...that's impossible!
At least in the past year, when Zhiyun Mobile was in a critical period of building a high-end brand, that was impossible!

Of course, once the brand is temporarily stable, the previous generation flagship can be sold at a lower price.

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After Xu Shenxue visited other R&D departments, he became more eager to support the domestic supply chain... There are too many imported core components in this mobile phone. It's not a question of sentimentality, but the cost is too high... and there are tariffs on imports.

In order to reduce tax costs, Zhiyun Technology has directly transferred overseas orders to its OEM factories in the bonded area, so that it can be exempted from tariffs on imported parts... Anyway, these mobile phones are shipped overseas directly after production and not sold domestically, so there is no need to go through customs.

However, mobile phones sold domestically cannot avoid tariffs on these imported components.

Xu Shenxue estimated that if domestic suppliers could be supported, the tariff costs could at least be reduced, regardless of other things.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue is still very concerned about supporting the domestic supply chain!

(End of this chapter)