The Orange S2 phone launch event was the same as before, adopting a hybrid online and offline approach.
Online, it was presented through various channels like Renren.com, Weibo, and Kuaibo, while the offline event was so popular that the number of reservations exceeded the Dongjiang Exhibition Center's capacity, and by a wide margin.
Even though the reservation channel was cut off five days in advance, a hundred people still received invitations, and these hundred people could only stand to watch the Orange S2 phone launch event.
March 20th was a sunny day.
In early spring Dongjiang, the weather was crisp; although there was still a slight chill, the midday sun made it considerably warmer.
On the way to the Dongjiang Exhibition Center with Lin Bin, Chen Pingjiang joked,
"This is my last time attending a phone launch event. Starting next year, you'll be the main speaker."
Lin Bin was a little puzzled,
"Chairman Chen, didn't you say you're quite good at it? I'm already quite old, and my image is much worse than yours, not to mention it doesn't align with our phone's user positioning."
Chen Pingjiang waved his hand,
"It's different. How many other companies have their chairman personally present at a launch? I think it's better to leave more opportunities for you and other middle and high-level management."
Huawei's phone launch events aren't hosted by Old Man Ren himself; they still find Yu Dazui.
This is because Yu Dazui is the head of the phone division and knows the phone's status and performance best.
As time goes on, Chen Pingjiang will have less time and less energy to dedicate to the phone business.
Most importantly, he also wants to make a distinction between himself and Orange phones, as he is different from Lei Jun.
When the two arrived at the Dongjiang Exhibition Center, streams of people at the entrance had already gathered like winding creeks, waiting to have their tickets checked and enter.
As soon as Chen Pingjiang got out of the car, he attracted many people's attention.
Reporters, hearing the news, rushed over, microphones directly pushed into Chen Pingjiang's face without a word.
"Hello, Mr. Chen, I'm a reporter from Chutian Metropolis Daily. May I ask if you are the main speaker today?"
Chen Pingjiang smiled,
"You'll know in a while."
"Mr. Chen, we'd like to ask what the current inventory of Orange S2 phones is? Will it be like the S1 phone, where we have to wait a long time to get our hands on it?"
"You'll know then, don't be so anxious, isn't the launch event about to begin?"
When other reporters wanted to ask questions, Lin Bin quickly blocked them, repeatedly shouting,
"Everyone, please make way, we're in a hurry. For specific information, please refer to the launch event."
"Oh, have you noticed that Mr. Chen is getting more and more handsome?"
"Isn't that normal? Look at those celebrities; before and after becoming famous, they're practically two different people. And money keeps you looking good, with fewer worries."
Chen Pingjiang and Lin Bin walked towards the main entrance, hearing female and male fans constantly shouting around them.
A male fan yelled,
"Mr. Chen, I want to have your babies!"
Female fans, on the other hand, waved quite demurely.
Indeed, when men act wild, women have nothing on them.
Seeing Chen Pingjiang and Lin Bin walk over, the security guard responsible for the side door immediately opened it to let them in.
After arriving backstage, Chen Pingjiang took a sip of water, then, as usual, adjusted the switcher in his hand and the microphone by his mouth.
It wasn't until 1:30 PM that everyone had entered.
At 2:00 PM, the music in the venue suddenly stopped, and the lights dimmed.
A spotlight accurately hit the stage entrance.
In that direction, Chen Pingjiang was slowly walking onto the stage with steady, unhurried steps.
Today, he was wearing a black hoodie and white canvas shoes.
He looked very young.
As soon as he stepped onto the stage, the fans below erupted in cheers.
It took a while for the cheers to gradually subside.
"Hello everyone, the last time we met was on March 5th last year. Just a short year has passed in a flash."
"But this year has truly been extraordinary for Orange Tech."
"In this year, we have gone through paths and completed tasks that other companies might need three to five years to achieve."
"In this year, the Orange S1 phone was released, selling well to this day, occupying the top one position in the national smartphone market, with annual shipments reaching 22 million units and a market share of 29%, far ahead of our competitors.
I am personally very satisfied with this achievement, but I also know that such results would not be possible without the support of our Orange fans. Without you, Orange Tech would not be where it is today."
It is worth mentioning that because Chen Pingjiang took the lead in disrupting the market, he actually fanned the wings of a butterfly.
In the original timeline of 2010, the total sales of smartphones were only 35 million.
But now, the shipments of Orange phones and Apple alone have reached 30 million.
This change in numbers is astonishing.
The earlier release of WeChat, the earlier development of mobile versions for Renren.com and Weibo, coupled with the affordable price of Orange phones driving sales, led to the rapid growth of the smartphone market.
Now, buying a smartphone has become a consensus.
Even middle-aged and elderly people are gradually moving towards smartphones due to the existence of WeChat.
This has provided deep fertile ground for ZTE, Huawei, and even Lenovo.
It can be said that Chen Pingjiang single-handedly changed the landscape of the domestic smartphone market.
"In this year, we not only did well with phones, but also achieved considerable sales in tablets and Bluetooth earphones. To ensure our products have better market competitiveness and to give back to our users, our scientists and engineers have continuously researched and developed for a year, finally bringing you the new Orange phone, the Orange S2."
As Chen Pingjiang spoke, the front and side photos of the Orange S2 appeared on the large screen.
The gasps were not prominent because everyone had already seen its true appearance from various leaked spy photos.
After all, too many people were paying attention to the Orange S2.
"Without further ado, let's take a look at what black technologies the new generation of Orange phone has."
After finishing his opening remarks, Chen Pingjiang began to formally introduce the Orange S2.
"Alas, I feel there are still some differences compared to the leaked pictures online."
"Perhaps the previous ones were engineering models, and now it's the real device. I think it might even look a little better than the iPhone 4."
Seeing the beautiful appearance of the Orange S2 on the big screen, Leibus's face darkened below the stage.
Compared to this, his own Xiaomi M1 looked too inferior.
"First to introduce is – Vermillion Bird Glass. I think many people have a common frustration when using large-screen phones: the screen is too fragile. It might break if accidentally dropped, and then you have to replace the screen, which now costs at least 800 yuan."
"To solve this pain point for our users, our engineers spent a year and a half finally developing the first generation of Vermillion Bird Glass technology. It has obtained the world's first Swiss SGS five-star drop-resistant glass certification."
"Vermillion Bird Glass is crafted through 108 microcrystalline raw material and panel processing steps, 24 hours of high-temperature nanocrystal growth, and 1600-degree platinum precious metal smelting technology.
Because it is a nanocrystalline glass material, by growing up to 100 million high-strength nanocrystals in the glass, its toughness is significantly enhanced. It not only has the advantages of high strength, weather resistance, and good light transmittance, but also wear resistance."
"When using a high-hardness borosilicate rod to scratch both ordinary screen glass and Kunlun Glass simultaneously, Vermillion Bird Glass left almost no traces. In actual scratch tests, Vermillion Bird Glass also showed no scratches after being scoured by a Mohs hardness 7 hard object."
Chen Pingjiang pressed the switcher, and the image on the screen changed to a phone glass.
The phone glass on the left was full of scratches, while the Vermillion Bird Glass on the right looked brand new.
Chen Pingjiang continued,
"Vermillion Bird Glass not only performs astonishingly in the lab but also brings multiple benefits in daily use. There's no need to worry about damaging your phone screen from scratches by hard objects like metal keys in your backpack or accidental drops to the ground."
"Some might ask, does a mere phone really need such powerful protection? My answer is: yes, it's very much needed. We visited nearly 100 phone after-sales service centers. Screen damage is a very common issue; nearly half of shattered screens have become the biggest risk in phone usage, and replacing screens is extremely expensive.
In fact, not only screens, but drops and water ingress also cause unexpected situations, all of which bring considerable trouble to users. It is by understanding this core user pain point that we have further enhanced the dust and water resistance of our phone, achieving an IP65 waterproof rating."
On stage, Chen Pingjiang was seriously introducing his product.
But the audience below and users watching the live stream in front of their computers felt a bit unaccustomed.
"What's going on? Is this still the Mr. Chen Pingjiang we know? He's not dissing anyone!"
"Apple and Samsung are hiding in the show, trembling, each repeating, 'Don't see me, don't see me.'"
"Haha, the upstairs comment is very vivid, I can picture it."
"Now that you mention it, it's true. The launch has been going on, and he hasn't mentioned them once. This is unreasonable!"
"Brothers, let's flood the comments. What kind of launch is this if there's no dissing?"
Who knew that as soon as that comment was sent, Chen Pingjiang's style immediately changed.
"Honestly, the security of our phone, when released on the market, absolutely crushes other competitors. I have to say, our Orange phone is the industry benchmark. A real man must be hard!"
"Hmm? Something strange seems to have appeared at the launch?"
"The speed is so fast, the wheels ran over my face before I realized it."
"Mr. Chen, I'm not a boy, I'm a girl."
"What's wrong with girls? Girls like hard things too."
The style of the comments gradually twisted...
"Besides the front being Vermillion Bird Glass, our frame uniformly adopts an integrated titanium alloy, with a ceramic back cover. Some might ask, isn't a ceramic back cover fragile? I'll tell you, it's definitely more resistant to drops than our competitors' glass back covers."
"Ceramic is warm in winter and cool in summer; it's a very pleasant material to touch and won't shield signals like metal. Therefore, a ceramic body doesn't need exposed antennas, giving the body a stronger overall feel. Ceramic and glass have a very similar appearance and feel, but ceramic has a higher Mohs hardness than glass, making it less prone to scratches in daily use and more durable."
The audience chuckled knowingly when they heard Chen Pingjiang start to diss iPhone.
That's the authentic flavor!
"That's more like it, why be so serious? We're not here for a report, Mr. Chen, we're here to see you put on a show."
At this moment, Jobs, cursing, had exited the group chat.
"Amazing, casually pulling out black technologies like Vermillion Bird Glass and ceramic back covers. I feel this one must be more expensive than the S1."
"No need to feel, if the price is below 6000 yuan, I'll eat dirt."
The faces of the various competitors below the stage grew increasingly grim.
How could they compete with this?
They didn't expect Orange Tech to have so many new technologies, churning them out as if they cost nothing.
In comparison, they could truly only be called assembly plants.
Developing so many things in just a year and a half, won't it make us seem incompetent?
But at the same time, everyone felt more admiration.
Research and development is truly a very money-consuming endeavor.
The key is not that you will necessarily get results just by spending money; some projects might be researched for three to five years and yield nothing.
Without strong conviction and financial support, R&D is truly difficult.
After Chen Pingjiang announced some hardware parameters, he began to focus on introducing the phone's software.
"It's worth mentioning that among Orange S1 phones, the beauty camera function was greatly favored by users. Of course, I'm not saying beauty cameras are bad, but they are modified post-capture no matter what.
In the Orange S2 phone, we developed a unique core imaging processing technology that combines software and hardware, including color algorithms, exposure algorithms, and functional module technical extensions. The new generation Orange S2 performs better in low-light night photography, and its color saturation is stronger in daylight."
"The Orange S2 features a camera that can rotate along the X-axis, allowing users to face the screen at different shooting angles. The lens module includes 10 modules, 50 connecting wires, and 67 parts, all treated for anti-static.
The maximum rotation angle reaches 206 degrees, covering the effective field of view required for shooting, and can stop at any angle to complete real-time preview of the scene. The rotating component has been tested to withstand 100,000 fault-free rotations."
"At the same time, it adopts an independent original image engine processing module, and the improved AWB algorithm can process color balance more accurately, enhancing the authenticity of image reproduction.
The imaging system uses AF to determine the direction of the camera module through gyroscope information, to improve the speed and accuracy of the motor moving the lens, while AE is responsible for controlling exposure accuracy.
Additionally, the phone has 7 automatically recognized scene modes: indoor, landscape, night scene, portrait, macro, sport, and mixed light."
"The photography function supports the 'slow shutter' scene mode. When enabled, users can freely select an exposure time from 0.5 seconds to 8 seconds based on the shooting scene, achieving long exposures similar to a DSLR camera."
"We have further optimized the beauty camera function, adding more styles, and the PS technology will also be more realistic."
"So, ladies, with such a great camera phone, what are you still thinking about? Go for it!"
Many audience members below the stage were actually confused by Chen Pingjiang's introduction, which was full of technical jargon, but they felt it was awesome and high-end!
Especially the girls, they just couldn't hold back.
For girls, they don't need to play mobile games.
In fact, their hardware requirements for phones are not very high, as long as the phone doesn't lag.
However, they have an almost fanatical demand for camera functions, which is why many girls use iPhones; simply put, the photos look good.
Good-looking photos are the biggest killer feature!
"Oh no, oh no, my New Year's money seems to be gone again, and it's only been a little over a month since the New Year."
"Even though my S1 is still very new, if you don't upgrade and I don't upgrade, how will Orange have money to develop black technologies?"
"As expected of my idol, he really considers girls."
"Any handsome guys looking for a girlfriend? My demands aren't high, as long as you can buy me an Orange S2, I'll agree to go to dinner with you."
"Don't even think about it, the one upstairs is definitely a rough guy."
Other phone manufacturers watching the live stream had increasingly grim expressions.
The Orange S1 pioneered the era of beauty cameras.
Competitors with capabilities had already started to copy, while those without could only pre-install Meitu Xiuxiu on their phones.
Yes, PS art, hailed as one of the four evil arts of Southeast Asia, was jointly launched by Orange Tech and Meitu Xiuxiu.
In fact, Meitu Xiuxiu went online in October 2008.
Initially, it was just a simplified version of PS, named "Meitu Master."
By 2009, Wu Xinhong changed the slightly serious name "Meitu Master" to "Meitu Xiuxiu."
Meitu Xiuxiu's beauty features were similar to the Orange S1's.
Besides basic functions like cropping, rotating, and resizing, it only had a few basic filters, such as Classic LOMO, Soft Light, Aesthetic, Memory, Retro, Black and White…
Its main selling point was being incredibly user-friendly.
In January of this year, the Meitu Xiuxiu APP officially launched on the iPhone store.
From the initial five major functions—"whitening and smoothing skin, removing spots and acne, slimming face and body, removing dark circles, and enlarging eyes"—it has now achieved "one-click beauty," and continues to expand and refine more beauty details, as well as enabling beauty selfies and real-time beauty functions.
Originally, competitors thought that Orange Tech spent an exorbitant price to develop a beauty function that could now be directly replaced by an APP.
What selling points did Orange phones still have?
But unexpectedly, Orange phones are now starting to play with hardware.
"Cough cough!"
Chen Pingjiang coughed, took a sip of mineral water, and then adjusted his waistband.
After a long pause, he began to introduce the next feature.
"Did you think the main selling point of the Orange S2 was still photography and beauty? Let me tell you, you're wrong. One of the main features of the Orange S2 is Hi-Fi high fidelity."
"Everyone knows that song data can be lost during transmission. Therefore, we added a Hi-Fi chip inside the phone. This allows students listening to music with headphones to hear sound quality closest to the original CD, truly achieving lossless transmission, and further improving decoding capabilities, allowing users to hear purer and more realistic music effects."
"Our phone has been tested to achieve the same sound quality effect as a thousand-yuan player. Most importantly, we will include a free Hi-Fi earphone. With Hi-Fi sound quality assurance, the phone's dynamic range can be improved, sampling rate increased, and total harmonic distortion noise reduced."
"Next, I will play two pieces of music. Please listen carefully and note the difference."
"Hotel California" immediately played in the venue.
After a moment, even the dullest person felt the difference.
"Although playing in the venue itself has some distortion, I feel the second segment might be better, and the sound is clearer."
"Yes, yes, I wanted to say too, the first segment's sound was a bit muffled."
"This is great news for us music lovers. Trash music, really can't listen to it at all."
Leibus below the stage applauded with the audience, a look of admiration on his face.
Truly amazing!
All sorts of new technologies kept emerging.
He knew both Zhou Guangping and Lin Bin.
Lei Jun knew they were capable, but they were more like implementers.
In terms of design direction, they weren't necessarily that brilliant, otherwise, they would have made a name for themselves earlier.
"Alas, perhaps this is where Chen Pingjiang is powerful; he can always turn decay into magic."
After watching this launch event, Lei Jun felt that he would probably have to drastically revise the Xiaomi M1 after he went back.
The Orange S1 had already pointed out the future direction of phone development for him; not copying homework would be foolish.
Even if they couldn't reach the level of Orange phones.
But adding two Hi-Fi chips, isn't that child's play?
Lei Jun felt a bit relieved.
Fortunately, he had planned for Xiaomi to take the low-price route from the beginning.
If it were to take the mid-to-high-end route and encounter the Orange S2, it would surely be crushed.
Even Apple didn't fare well against Orange, let alone himself.
Times are changing, and there's no denying it!
(End of Chapter)