Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 52 "Cost-Effectiveness" Screen

Orange Technology's small workshop.

The roar of the tuk-tuk broke the morning silence, and the two people setting up their stall next door cast their gazes over.

As Zhao Tiezhu jumped off the truck, a rust stain rubbed off the knee of his work pants from the truck bed. He brushed the rust off his knee and shouted at the driver.

"Driver! Stop right here!"

Five cardboard boxes bearing the words "HuaCai Touch Control" were piled up in the truck bed, making a soft clattering sound as the truck swayed.

Fortunately, the goods inside were all individually packaged in pearl cotton bags; otherwise, after being jostled around like that in the tuk-tuk, these delicate capacitive screens would probably have shattered into glass shards all over the place.

Early capacitive screens did not have the glass cover with a Mohs hardness of 7-8 that later models had, nor did they have a flexible buffer layer or a recessed bezel design, making them very easy to break.

Zhao Tiezhu opened the top box with lingering fear, recalling the terrifying moment when the driver slammed on the gas pedal as they went over the speed bump. The boxes jumped half a foot high in the truck bed, making his heart almost leap out of his throat.

He carefully unpacked the package, and only when the screen surface perfectly reflected his handsome face did he breathe a sigh of relief.

If these "good quality and cheap" capacitive screens are ruined, not only will we not save time and costs, but we might also ruin Orange Technology's reputation.

After all, the launch date of Chen Mo's planned Orange 1 phone is just around the corner.

If Orange Technology truly misses the wave of smartphone adoption brought about by the Apple 4, it will be difficult for them to get started.

Chen Mo, who was reskinning the Android system at his "workstation," heard the noise and crawled out of the workshop.

"These are all capacitive touchscreens?" He stared at the red "trial product" stamp on the cardboard box, his gaze sweeping over the sweat stains on Zhao Tiezhu's back. "I just casually mentioned a touchscreen manufacturer in Bao'an, and you got it sorted out in three days?"

"You underestimated me!" Zhao Tiezhu grinned, revealing two tiger teeth.

He crouched down and removed the tape from the remaining boxes, revealing the screen wrapped in anti-static film, and carefully inspected it.

Thankfully! Although this batch of trial production screens had some flaws in multi-touch functionality, at least the quality was guaranteed and none of them broke!
Now, Zhao Tiezhu finally had the mood to joke around and complain to Chen Mo.

"Brother Chen! It wasn't easy! It wasn't easy! I spent two days staking out the science park in Bao'an." Zhao Tiezhu said smugly, holding up five fingers on his right hand: "I've handed out five packs of cigarettes alone!"

Chen Mo didn't understand what this rascal was thinking. On the surface, he was complaining, but in reality, he was asking for credit and a bonus!

Chen Mo first squatted down to look at the screen, his fingertips brushing over the slightly yellowed edges.

Zhao Tiezhu, however, was very eager to show off and continued to ramble on about taking credit for himself.

After all, if I didn't tell Brother Chen about my efforts over the past two days, he would think I was just all talk!
"That's how I managed to get the Huacai warehouse manager's phone number from the middleman, and I went there that very night with my cleaver!" He proudly held up five fingers: "The screen was originally priced at 30, but I managed to haggle it down to 25!"

"Haha! Stop nagging, kid. Here's a 500 yuan bonus for you. How about the specifications?" Chen Mo straightened up, waved his hand in front of him, and asked for some product specifications.

Zhao Tiezhu pulled a crumpled A4 sheet of paper from his pocket; the ink on the paper was blurred by sweat.

“Here’s an explanation! Products that failed in trial production don’t have proper specifications, but the production permits from the industry and commerce bureau are all there!” He leaned closer and lowered his voice: “Brother Chen, are we really going to use this screen? What if the touchscreen really has problems?”

After the "Orange 4" screen, which Old Wang followed suit in his previous life, was changed to single-point touch, the touch was more stable, so technically speaking, there is no problem with it.

"Software can solve it!" Chen Mo said with absolute confidence, unfolding the explanation: "As long as multi-touch is disabled at the system level, the error of single-touch can be controlled!" "By the way!" Chen Mo folded the explanation in his hand and turned to look at Zhao Tiezhu: "Have you checked these screens?"

"It's already been tested!" Zhao Tiezhu puffed out his chest, pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket (it looked like it was torn from the back of some notebook), and pointed at it, reading it to Chen Mo.

"A total of 10 samples were tested, and about 5% of the screens had yellowing at the edges, which was only visible to the naked eye when viewed up close. The touch function was not affected at all."

He pointed to the next line.

"Three-point touch accuracy ±2~4 mm, light transmittance 82.5%."

He smugly pulled a sealed plastic bag out of the box and shook it; the black plastic sleeve inside rattled loudly.

"They accepted the 5% edge yellowing and even gave us an extra 10% FPC reinforcement sleeve as compensation. It was free money!"

Chen Mo nodded; these parameters were acceptable.

Although the accuracy of three-point touch was a bit beyond his expectations (±2~4 mm), if it were changed to single-point touch, the error should be controllable to 2~3 mm.

Chen Mo wasn't the kind of newcomer to mobile phone manufacturing who would expect zero error right from the start. How could an industrial product be without error?

The Apple 4, which is set to be unveiled in June, still has a touchscreen error of ±2.5mm!
Since Chen Mo didn't have a system developed its own "self-developed" screen, he naturally wouldn't be too demanding about the screen's parameters.

Originally, intercepting the remaining stock from Old Wang's previous life, which had failed in trial production, was already an unexpected bonus.

Moreover, Zhao Tiezhu was able to acquire the core components at a cost lower than the market price, and even included compensation materials. In Chen Mo's view, this was a sure-fire deal.

What Orange Technology lacks right now is not perfect hardware, but the ability to capitalize on the momentum following the release of the iPhone 4 and launch a smartphone at an extremely low price to capture the first batch of users.

By controlling multi-touch at the system level, the error of single-touch can be kept within an acceptable range for the user.

With the addition of self-developed cutting-edge technology—a gaseous lithium battery—and a rebranded Android 2.3.1 system, the Orange 1 is poised to seize a foothold in the domestic smartphone market amidst the release of the Apple 4.

Chen Mo roughly checked the appearance of the five boxes of screens, paid the delivery driver sent by the manufacturer, and the sound of the tuk-tuk engine gradually faded away.

"Alright, Tiezhu!" Chen Mo called to him, "Let's move the screen inside first, so it doesn't get smashed by passing cars!"

The only sound in the workshop was the noise of two people moving screens.

The two moved it very carefully. This box of capacitive touchscreens contained about 200 pieces, and each piece cost 25 yuan, so the whole box cost 5,000 yuan.

Even though the first batch of 1000 Orange 1 phones sold out smoothly, Chen Mo only earned 9.6 yuan.

By simply smashing a few more boxes of screens, Chen Mo could essentially be said to be losing money to produce Orange 1.

After moving the screen, Zhao Tiezhu wiped his sweat and happily counted the 500 yuan bonus Chen Mo had given him.

5包白沙25元+10元一瓶的烈刀子+20元花生零嘴+两天来回9号线的票钱20元=75元。

Zhao Tiezhu did the math and realized he'd made a net profit of 425. Pretty good! Pretty good!

(End of this chapter)