Reborn in 2005, starting with repairing mobile phones

Chapter 183 Oriental Mobile Phone Launch Event 2 (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets!)

He put down the Nokia and picked up another phone from the table. It was silver-white, with the screen facing down, so that only the metal back was visible to the audience.

He turned the phone over.

The screen lit up.

The sunrise Iogo appears against a black background.

Someone in the audience leaned forward.

He held up two mobile phones side by side. A Nokia in his left hand and an Oriental mobile phone in his right. Hundreds of eyes in the audience were fixed on the two phones—the one on the left was covered with buttons, while the one on the right was clean with only a screen.

"The screen is three and a half inches. There's no keyboard. The entire front is screen."

He stretched his hand forward so that people in the back row could see it clearly.

Which one do you think looks better?

There was a half-second silence in the audience.

"The one on the right!" someone shouted.

Lin Dong glanced in that direction and his lips twitched slightly.

"I also think the one on the right looks better."

He put the Nokia back on the table and held the Oriental phone up a little higher.

"But looking good isn't the result; it's the reason. What's the reason? It's that we removed the buttons. The half of the area that the keyboard occupied has been given back to the screen. It's that simple."

He put his phone back on the table and walked to the front of the stage.

"You might ask, how do you type without a keyboard? What if your fingers are too thick to type accurately? What if people used to Nokia phones can't get used to it?"

He paused for a moment.

"These questions weren't asked by you. They were asked by Nokia. They were asked by Motorola. They were asked by Samsung. And after they asked, they didn't do anything."

He raised his head.

"We did it."

The audience fell silent.

Was that a heavy statement? Yes, it was. Saying in front of hundreds of people that Nokia wouldn't dare to do it.

"We dare. Not because we're crazy. It's because we've done the math. For every inch the screen is bigger, the user sees twice as much. For every 0.1 second faster touch, the user waits 0.1 seconds less. All of that adds up to it being worth the price."

He picked up the Nokia and the Oriental mobile phone and held them up side by side.

"See for yourselves. Which screen is bigger? Which one is clearer? Which one can be opened with a single tap of your finger?"

No one answered.

The answer is obvious.

He put down the Nokia and looked back at the big screen.

A comparison image appeared on the large screen, showing Nokia's screen and Dongfang Technology's screen side by side. Nokia's screen was two inches. Dongfang Technology's screen was three and a half inches.

Lin Dong drew a box on the Nokia screen.

"This is Nokia's browsing area. When browsing the web, you can only see this small section."

He drew a box on the screen of the Oriental mobile phone, and the box almost filled the entire screen.

"This is the browsing area for Oriental Technology. On the same webpage, you can see almost twice as much. No need..."

You can flip through it without zooming in or out; just open it and you can see it.

He paused for a moment.

"This isn't a technical issue. It's a matter of choice. Nokia chose a keyboard, so the screen is only this big."

We selected the screen, so the keyboard is gone.

He put the phone back on the small round table.

"It's that simple."

Some people in the audience nodded.

Then, more people nodded.

Lin Dong did not continue to discuss the screen's parameters.

He turned around, picked up another phone from the table, exactly the same as the first one, silver-white, screen facing down.

"With a larger screen, there's one problem: it's more prone to breaking."

He flipped his phone over and tapped the screen with his finger, making a crisp sound.

"This piece of glass isn't a screen. The screen is underneath it."

He paused for a moment.

"The screen is LG's LTPS. Last year, we talked for eleven days in Seoul, and LG reserved their best batch for us. The three-and-a-half-inch display panel you see here, with its rich colors and extremely fast response time, was made by LG."

Some people in the audience nodded in agreement.

LG, a major South Korean manufacturer of displays, is well-known in the industry.

"But a good screen isn't enough. No matter how good the screen is, if it breaks easily when dropped, users will be constantly worried while holding it. So what truly constitutes a good screen?"

He held up the phone so the audience could see it clearly.

Then let go.

The phone fell onto the stage from a height of 1.5 meters.

With a loud "smack," someone in the audience gasped—the people in the first row leaned back, the people in the second row leaned forward, and someone in the third row stood up and then sat down again.

Lin Dong squatted down and picked it up.

The screen is lit and undamaged.

He held up his phone, spun it around, and made sure everyone could see it.

"This thing covering the screen is called protective glass. Corning. Gorilla."

He paused for a moment.

"Corning has been making this glass for decades, but we've never used it in mobile phones before. We're the first."

Some people in the audience were whispering among themselves.

Corning, the Corning that makes laboratory glassware? The Corning that makes optical fibers? Yes, that's the Corning.

"Do you know why nobody uses it? It's not because the technology is bad."

He looked at the audience and waited a few seconds.

"It's because it's expensive. A piece of glass costs three times more than a regular screen. Nokia did the math and decided it wasn't worth it."

He paused again.

"We didn't do the math. We were thinking, if a user buys a phone and the screen gets damaged after three days, whose fault is that?"

Someone in the audience chuckled.

"That's why we used Corning glass. Because it's hard."

He picked up the key from the table.

He took the key and swiped it across the screen.

*Sizzle*—Someone in the audience frowned. He swiped again. *Sizzle*—He swiped again. Then he turned the screen towards the audience. Completely intact.

No scratches, no cracks, spotless.

"This isn't magic. This is materials science."

The audience began to applaud.

The applause from Lin Dong and the others subsided.

"Of course, you don't need to use your keys to scan the code yourself. We've scanned it for you."

The audience laughed again.

Before the laughter had even subsided, he added, "Three were scratched, and two broke."

The audience burst into laughter.

Lin Dong didn't laugh along. He waited for the laughter to subside.

"The third one wasn't broken. So we used Corning glass."

"With a larger screen, there's another problem: increased power consumption."

Lin Dong turned his phone over, facing the audience, and pointed to the back of the phone.

"There's a battery in here. It's from ATL. You might not have heard of ATL, but that's okay."

He paused for a moment.

"But you should know that Apple also wants this battery."

There was a moment of silence in the audience.

Then someone turned their head, and someone exchanged a glance with the person next to them.

Apple. Those two words carried immense weight in the mobile phone industry in 2006. Although Apple hadn't yet made phones, the iPod had already revolutionized the entire industry. Everyone was guessing what Apple would do next; everyone was afraid.

"Last year, we ran data tests at ATL's lab for two months. This battery has 20% higher energy density than the best batteries on the market. For the same volume, it lasts for an extra hour."

He put the phone back on the table.

"You might ask, why did Apple give you the battery they wanted?"

He smiled.

"Because apples need to be ripe before they can be used. We help them ripen."

Some people in the audience nodded.

This statement wasn't explicitly stated, but those who understand will understand: Apple is a giant, and giants don't take risks.

Dongfang Technology is a startup, and startups dare to try anything. Apple wouldn't dare use ATL's new battery, but Dongfang Technology did.

They used it, the data was generated, and the battery technology matured. By the time Apple wanted to use it, Dongfang Technology had already been running it for a year.

"This battery lasts all day on a single charge. From leaving home in the morning to returning home in the evening, with normal phone calls..."

Sending text messages, surfing the internet, listening to music, taking photos—I can manage.

He paused for a moment.

"As you Nokia users know, Nokia phones also need to be charged once a day. But that 'once a day' for Nokia phones means charging them sparingly. Making fewer calls and sending fewer text messages can extend their lifespan by half a day."

He picked up the Oriental mobile phone and held it up.

"Ours only needs to be charged once a day, so you don't have to worry about saving it. You can still make calls, send text messages, browse the internet, listen to music, and take photos until you go to bed at night, and it still has power left."

Some people in the audience nodded.

"What's the difference? It's in energy density. The same volume can store 20% more electricity. It's not magic, it's chemistry."

Lin Dong walked back to the center of the stage.

"Screen, glass, battery. Can Nokia make these three things?"

He looked down at the audience.

"It's possible. Can Motorola do it? Yes. Can Samsung do it? Yes."

He paused for a moment.

"But they didn't do it. Not because they lacked the technology. It was because they felt it wasn't necessary."

He raised his head.

"We did it. Because it was necessary."

The lights dimmed slightly. A line of text appeared on the large screen: "Screen. Glass. Battery."

Then it went dark.

Lin Dong stood in the dim light and waited for three seconds.

"This is the first thing."

"Next, let's talk about touch control."

He walked to the side of the stage.

All the lights are off.

The prototype in the center of the stage was still lit up, its silver-white casing gleaming softly in the dim light.

The sunrise logo on the screen lit up for a few seconds on the black screen, then slowly dimmed.

No one left the audience.

Hundreds of people sat in the darkness, staring at the lit phone. No one spoke, no one looked at the phone, no one stood up. They were all waiting for the young man to emerge from behind the curtain and tell them what was next.

Lin Dong walked out from behind the curtain.

This time he did not go to the center of the stage.

He walked to the prototype, bent down, picked it up from the small round table, held it in his hand, then turned and walked to the front of the stage. The spotlight followed him, casting a long shadow onto the sun logo on the backdrop.

Hundreds of eyes were following him from the audience.

He stopped and held up his phone.

"What broke just now was glass."

He tapped the screen with his finger, making a crisp sound.

"Now, let's talk about—how to use it."

He turned around and waved to the side of the curtain.

Zheng Hao walked up carrying a tray. On the tray were three mobile phones: a Nokia, a Motorola, and a Dopod. He placed the tray on a small round table, nodded to the audience, and turned to leave. He didn't say a word the entire time.

Lin Dong picked up the Nokia phone and held it up.

"Nokia. The best-selling phone. You've all used it."

He pressed a few buttons on the Nokia keypad: menu, submenu, and sub-submenu. Simultaneously, the cursor on the large screen jumped between the text menus, one space at a time with each press.

Want to open the calendar? Tap five times. Want to send a text message? First tap Menu, then Messages, then Compose, then Input Method, then Select Character. Follow the steps one by one; don't skip or rush. If you press the wrong button, go back and try again.

He pressed the back button on the Nokia keypad, and the cursor returned to the previous menu. He pressed it a few more times and closed it.

He put the Nokia back on the tray.

"Motorola."

He picked up the Motorola and flipped it open. Its screen appeared on the large screen—unlike Nokia, it had a touchscreen. But Lin Dong didn't tap it with his finger; instead, he picked up the accompanying plastic pen from the tray and poked the screen with the tip.

A menu popped up on the screen. He tapped it a few times with the tip of his pen, but the response was slow, requiring him to press hard each time, leaving a shallow dent on the screen surface.

"Touchscreen. But you need a stylus. It won't recognize your finger. That's because it's a resistive screen, not a capacitive one. It relies on pressure sensing; your fingernail won't work, your paw won't work, you can only use this stylus."

He held the plastic pen up to the light.

"Nokia's designers felt that fingers were too thick to accurately tap the screen, so they included this stylus."

He put the pen back on the tray.

"Then the user lost the pen. After losing it, he poked at it with his fingernail, poked it with his key, poked it with the ballpoint pen until the screen was scratched, and he couldn't press accurately."

Someone in the audience chuckled.

The person laughing probably lost that pen themselves.

He closed the Motorola and put it back.

Dopod. Windows Mobile.

He picked up the Dopod and turned on the screen. A densely packed menu appeared on the large screen, with a "Start" button in the upper right corner, just like on a Windows computer.

"They've crammed Windows from the computer into the phone. The Start Menu, folders, right-click menu, stylus—they've all been moved over."

He tapped the "Start" menu on the screen with his pen, and the menu popped up, with rows of small text crammed together.

Have you ever used Windows Mobile?

A few people in the audience raised their hands.

"Do you find it useful?"

The person who raised their hand lowered it.

The audience laughed again.

"I'm not mocking Nokia, Motorola, or Dopod. They did the best they could under the conditions at the time. Nokia's keyboard was the best input solution available then."

Motorola's resistive touchscreen was the only touch solution available at the time. Dopod's solution, bringing Windows into mobile phones, was the most direct approach imaginable at the time.

He put the Dopod back on the tray.

"But they all have one thing in common."

He looked down at the audience.

"They're 'teaching' you. Nokia teaches you to use the keyboard, Motorola teaches you to use the stylus, and Dopod teaches you to use Windows. When you buy a phone, you have to learn how to use it first. Only after you've learned how will you find it useful. If you can't learn, then it's your problem."

He paused for a moment.

"This isn't a people problem. It's a design problem."

He held up the Oriental mobile phone.

"We won't teach you what we're making."

He swiped on the screen. The large screen displayed a synchronized motion—the desktop icons followed his finger as he swiped.

"You pick it up, tap it with your finger, and it lights up. Tap it again, and it opens. Swipe to turn the page."

You don't need to learn. You're born with it.

He slipped again.

"Why? Because the finger was always there."