Office monitors may become Huawei's next focus

About 4 years ago, Huawei decided to test the waters in the home notebook computer market, but it did not know that its products would cause a storm in the domestic notebook market as soon as they were released. Although Huawei has repeatedly stated that its notebook business is only to test the market reaction, judging from the market reaction, Huawei's computer business can be said to be very successful. The MateView series of monitors released by Huawei some time ago is another new attempt by Huawei to explore the boundaries of its own products.

What is different about Huawei MateView?

In fact, Huawei is not the first brand that wants to expand its product line and test the boundaries of its products. In addition to Samsung and LG, which have broad product lines, Xiaomi, another domestic mobile phone brand, has also launched many display products with cost-effectiveness as the main selling point. However, looking at the displays of Samsung, LG and Xiaomi, these brands seem to have not been able to break away from the framework of traditional displays. No matter how different the product appearance and panel quality are, the final product form is still a basic display.

Product form is the first breakthrough point of Huawei MateView.

In terms of appearance, I don't deny that the base design of Huawei MateView is similar to that of Apple's Pro XDR. But we know that product design is the external manifestation of product functions. In layman's terms, the appearance of the product needs to serve the product function. From this perspective, the appearance design of Huawei MateView can be said to be clear at a glance:

In traditional display design, the screen stand is just a "dead object" with only a physical support relationship with the screen itself. Even Dell's stand NUC computer host is just an external computer attached to the back of the stand. But Huawei MateView is different. The stand is no longer a simple support structure, but an integral part of the MateView function. The side stand and the bottom projection are important components of the MateView function. It can be said that the reason why Huawei MateView has such an appearance design is inseparable from the hardware functions behind it.

But in my opinion, the product form of Huawei MateView, which closely combines function and appearance, has become a breakthrough point for Huawei MateView, but it is also a shortcoming of MateView:

We have seen many examples of highly bundled functions and designs, and Apple's iconic iMac all-in-one computer is the most famous example. Although the iMac's excellent design has won it the favor of many users, the disadvantage that the screen is tied to the computer and cannot be used independently has also deterred many people.

The same is true for Huawei MateView. The stand is an important part of MateView and they are inseparable. This is an obvious shortcoming for professional users who are used to multi-screen operation. Because MateView is bound to the stand, the industry-standard VESA mount cannot be used, which means that in a multi-screen scenario, the extra stand will take up too much desktop space.

Some people may think that "multi-screen is just a fancy word", but let's take a look at the entry threshold of the financial industry - the standard form of Bloomberg terminal:

The lack of VESA standards has greatly limited the prospects of MateView in industry applications. The compromise of key indicators also means that MateView can only be used in general home scenes or homemade videos by amateur Up masters. Although MateView has a strict factory color calibration process, let alone its application in theaters or broadcasting, the non-native "dithering color depth" makes even the most ambitious personal photographers or illustrators shake their heads.

Less than professional, more than home use

Although MateView is a little disappointing in the professional field, it performs quite well in the more common home field. The global brightness of 550nit allows home users to enjoy the ultimate HDR picture at home. Although the touch OSD menu is not as convenient as the remote control and five-way joystick, it is still much more intuitive than the inline buttons on the back.

In addition, MateView is one of the few home monitors equipped with dual front speakers, so it is no exaggeration to say that MateView is a universal home monitor. From the perspective of home users, the emergence of MateView has also brought new impetus to the dull monitor market.

In addition, MateView also leverages Huawei's past experience in smart devices and has launched a number of special screen projection functions that are interconnected with mobile phones, with wireless screen projection as the core. This approach not only expands the application scenarios of mobile phones in the field of audio and video, but also further enhances the cohesion and irreplaceability of Huawei's ecosystem. In general, although MateView cannot directly convert other users to the Huawei ecosystem, for users who are already in the Huawei ecosystem, the feature of MateView's interconnection with other devices will be MateView's unique competitive advantage.

Since the popularity of IPS panels, the product form of monitors has been finalized. The emergence of MateView has pointed out a new path for other monitor brands - monitors do not have to be made from the perspective of computer accessories. In the era of mobile Internet, mobile phones, computers, and tablets can all be used as content sources for monitors. Using the idea of ​​mobile phones to make monitors is exactly where MateView wins by surprise.

Summarize

For Huawei terminals, the passive failure in overseas markets has forced Huawei terminals to expand their product lines and explore product forms other than mobile phones. It has also used its influence in the mobile phone field to expand Huawei's market in other product areas. Huawei's in-vehicle equipment is the best example of this.

For a brand as big as Huawei, it is not difficult to expand its product line. However, while expanding, how to apply existing human resources and technical reserves to other fields is also a challenge that Huawei needs to face. Moreover, cross-category will bring higher requirements to the supply chain, which Huawei also needs to pay attention to.

But don't forget that at this stage, the MateView display is just a test product of Huawei. As a Mate series product, the product standard of MateView cannot be lower than the industry, which is also one of the brand strengths of MateView. As Huawei's first display product, MateView has attracted much attention since its release. I believe that when subsequent products are released, MateView will bring greater changes to the display market.