Introduction to Cloud Mobile Phones#
China Mobile has launched a beta version of cloud mobile phone service, and I tried it out as soon as possible. First of all, let me give you the conclusion: this is an attempt by cloud computing to reach individual users.
Cloud Phone Configuration and Benchmark#
Hardware Specifications#
Have you ever seen a mobile phone with an AMD graphics card? This is also my first time seeing it, but I'm a bit confused because the CPU is displayed as vivo. I don't understand this stuff. There's no need to introduce the memory and stuff, it's just a regular 8GB of memory, and only 64GB of storage, probably because it's a newly released cloud phone.
Operating System#
I really can't hold back this Redmi4 model anymore. The system is HarmonyOS, the camera has been removed, and the built-in keyboard is Gboard, which is really inconvenient. In summary, it's a Frankenstein phone. I hope it can be optimized in the future to create a unique remote mobile phone service for mobile devices.
Benchmark#
I was really surprised by the benchmark results. Both the benchmark parameters and the memory and storage performance are much better than I expected. The most impressive is the bandwidth, as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been emphasizing the promotion of gigabit bandwidth. But I have never been able to afford it, and the campus network at my school is even more disappointing. 5G is not as fast as I imagined. Only this cloud mobile phone can allow me to witness a true 2-gigabit bandwidth. When downloading software, I can't even see the progress bar.
User Experience#
The cloud mobile phone only has 2 hours of experience time per day. Interested friends can download and experience it themselves. When using it, you can clearly feel the lag. I don't know if it's due to unstable network or poor optimization of the cloud phone. The average latency between my phone and the cloud phone is about 68ms, which is moderate. It's not considered high latency, but if you consider the latency to the game server when playing online games, it might be slightly higher.
After many years, the three navigation buttons are back in action. To avoid conflicts with the gestures on the phone, I chose the default navigation buttons. If you mind, you can manually change it to the bottom navigation bar. The system settings are so simplified that many settings cannot be manually changed, such as developer mode. Finally, the phone supports a maximum resolution of 720p. Seriously, China Mobile? Don't you have confidence in your own bandwidth?
To try out this phone, I downloaded Genshin Impact for the first time. I don't know if it's because I'm not used to this game or for other reasons, but everything feels awkward. The graphics are very blurry and the gameplay is extremely laggy. The experience is okay, but if you really want to play, it's really not necessary.
Evaluation and Reflection#
What is a cloud mobile phone? Simply put, it is a mobile display. The computing process of our phone is handled by servers, and the calculation results are sent to the cloud mobile phone. Our phone only needs a small chip with low computing power for video decoding. This provides a direction for making phones thinner and lighter.
Personally, I don't think cloud mobile phones will become the mainstream form in the future, for the following reasons:
- Currently, the mobile phone market has reached a saturation point, and there is no extra market space for cloud mobile phones to experiment.
- The ecosystem and system are difficult to optimize. Without an ecosystem, there is no market, and without a market, there is no promotion of the ecosystem. It's a death spiral.
- The current form of mobile phones has already passed the market test, and consumers have no motivation to switch.
Does that mean cloud mobile phones are useless? Of course not! Personally, I believe that cloud mobile phones are a trial for the next generation of mobile smart devices - VR (whether it's AR, VR, MR, etc., I refer to them all as VR). The space of these virtual reality devices is more precious, and if you want to make them portable, most of the space needs to be used for batteries, displays, microphones, and other hardware. There is not much room left for chips and cooling components. The combination of cloud computing and 5G is, in my opinion, a more reasonable solution for VR.