Comments: Is the "fully upgraded" vivo X9s worth buying?

Since the beginning of this year, smart phones that emphasize high-pixel beauty selfies have become the main battlefield for mid-to-high-end market competition. Since May alone, there have been as many as six or seven similar new products, many of which have joined the front dual cameras, focusing on the functionality of self-portraits, which can be said to make consumers confused.

It is worth mentioning that the vivo X9s just released at the beginning of this month is also a new product of such a front soft light double-camera beauty selfie. Compared with the vivo X9 released in June last year, the X9s is obviously an upgraded model in terms of naming rules, but can this product actually be called iterative and competitive in the market? Next, let's analyze this new product together.

First of all, in appearance, vivo X9s basically inherited the design of the previous generation X9, except for a few details, the whole fuselage is almost the same as the X9. For example, ultra-narrow bezel, ultra-thin fuselage, front fingerprint identification, front dual camera with fill light, rear single camera, U-shaped antenna separator, and even the opening at the bottom of the fuselage are not much different. Compared with X9, the color scheme is reduced to vibrant blue, only gold, rose gold and matte black.

Because the process of mold opening is omitted, X9s obviously saves a lot of development and design costs, but objectively speaking, it is understandable that X9s continues the design of the previous generation of products. After all, the overall face value, workmanship and grip of this product can be described as excellent, especially the thickness of 6.99mm, which inherits the ultra-thin characteristics that the vivo X series has always emphasized, and with the ultra-narrow frame, it is visually superior to many products of the same level. Just because the front dual camera, fill light and sensor are occupied, this product still makes people feel messy on the front top opening, which will inevitably drive obsessive-compulsive patients crazy.

In terms of specifications, there are not many upgrade points for vivo X9s. This product still uses a 5.5-inch 1080P display, and the screen material is Super AMOLED, which is more eye-catching in color and energy-saving performance, which makes vivo the most admired high-scoring LED screen among domestic smartphone brands except Samsung.

In addition to continuing to use the storage combination from 4GB+64GB, the biggest difference between this product and X9 in performance specifications is the use of Qualcomm Xiaolong 652 processor. For this processor, many netizens are no strangers. At the price of about 2,000 yuan last year, this processor almost completely beat MediaTek Helio and became synonymous with high cost performance, even surpassing the flagship Snapdragon 8 10. However, according to the current market positioning, this quasi-flagship product, which has been on the market for more than one year, is not much different from the Snapdragon 625 adopted before the X9 in performance. The only advantage lies in the image performance, even worse than the Snapdragon 625 in some conditions. For example, the Xiaolong 652 process adopted by X9s is only 28nm, which obviously lags behind the Snapdragon 625 adopted by X9 in terms of heat generation and power consumption. Therefore, as an upgraded product, adopting such a SoC that is on the verge of production suspension will inevitably make people suspect that vivo will further reduce the cost in hardware specifications, and it cannot be called a new upgrade at all.

In fact, first-line smartphone brands, including vivo and OPPO, have been criticized for using low-specification hardware, especially processors, in the early years. Faced with the disapproval of manufacturers, many consumers think that this hardware positioning is enough to retain excessive profits and shorten the product life cycle compared with other products with the same price.

What about the main camera? The pixel combination of the X9s front dual camera is 20 million+5 million pixels, which is lower than the previous 20 million+8 million pixels. Although the low-pixel camera is only suitable for obtaining depth of field information, the change of parameters will inevitably make people feel uncomfortable. The rear is a single shot16 million pixels, there is no difference. Both are equipped with front soft light and rear LED flash. According to the official description of vivo, although the X9s has not improved the camera pixels, this product has been changed on the DSP. Independent DSP and brand-new beauty algorithm will add a lot of color to the beauty selfie and imaging level. The most typical thing is to add the backlight improvement option, which will effectively improve the black face problem caused by backlight environment when dealing with daily shooting.

In addition, the main HiFi hardware of vivo also stays in AK4376. The only obvious upgrade of the whole specification is the battery, which is upgraded from the previous 3000 mAh to 3340 mAh. However, due to the limitation of SoC technology, it is difficult to produce a significant improvement in experience by only increasing the capacity of 10%.

In terms of system, vivo is the first brand in China to realize the scale of third-party UI system, and it is precisely because of its strong investment in software research and development that it is ahead of most products in the intelligent experience of the system. Vivo X9s adopts the new Funtouch OS? 3. 1, deeply optimized based on the latest Android 7. 1 system, and the overall experience is very convenient. However, under the background that all OTA products are upgraded to Funtouch OS 3. 1, there is almost no difference between X9s and X9.

Summary:

Judging from the actual product line structure of vivo, the newly released X9s can be said to be a new product of upgrade iteration, without many reasons. Compared with the X9 launched eight months ago, there is no progress in hardware, and the wording of "overall upgrade" and "new design" mentioned in the product introduction of vivo in official website is also quite different. It is still a bit far-fetched to use DSP optimization as a shooting upgrade. After all, there are too many subjective factors in shooting, and the X9s is difficult to judge.

However, from the perspective of the peripheral market, the X9s is indeed the top product in the self-timer smartphone. Judging from the average level of the models currently on the market, vivo X9s will undoubtedly attract many female consumers who don't pay much attention to performance specifications with its high pixel front dual cameras, ultra-narrow and ultra-thin, excellent manufacturing technology and intelligent and easy-to-use system.

At present, the initial listing price of vivo X9s is 2698 yuan, which is only 100 yuan different from the price of X9' s 2598 yuan, which has little influence on consumers' choice. Both models can be selected.