What Is The Effect Of Xiaoimi Mi 9 Pro’s Horizontal Linear Motor? Answer: Not As Good As Meizu, Far Behind Apple

Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro has aroused a heated discussion about the linear motor in China, so today we will talk about this flagship standard.

The effect of mobile phone vibration is not a feature that everyone is closely concerned about, there are not a few people who buy a mobile phone to turn off the vibration first. And most users in need of the vibration only require to feel it, no matter what kind of vibration motor it is, as long as it can make a sense of vibration.

In the past, although many mobile phones were equipped with such good motors as the horizontal linear motor (which will be described in detail later), they were not introduced or even nominated at the conference. For example, few people know that Xiaomi Mi 6, even the “Symbian” in the era of feature phones, is actually equipped with a horizontal linear motor.

Vibration Motor: From The Neglected Phase To The Valued Phase

Why did previous mobile phones not mention the selling point of vibration motors? First of all, there was no urgent need, everyone paid more attention to the system, processor and screen. In the case of many other cell phone functions upgrades, a small vibration motor as a selling point is a little demeaning.

But the main reason is experience. For example, the X-axis linear motor mounted on Xiaomi Mi 6 is better in principle than the circular-axis linear motor and the rotor motor, but the actual experience is not as good as the ordinary rotor motor. The reason lies in the poor adaptation and tuning so that many scenes cannot turn on the vibration, and the effect is unsatisfactory. Furthermore, in order to control the cost, only the Z-axis linear motor is selected. Its volume is too small, and the vibration is not as strong as the rotor motor.

Why are mobile phone manufacturers now interested in the selling point of vibration motors? There are many reasons. It may be because the current upgrade of the selling point of mobile phones is approaching the bottleneck period. When the selling point is scarce, a small vibration motor is fancy. Of course, it is also related to changes in user needs. Mobile phone manufacturers in the past two years have focused on the feel experience, and the vibration is also known as an important part of the experience. Among them, the iPhone has played a great role in promoting, therefore everyone realized that a good sense of vibration can be so cool.

Since there is demand, manufacturers will naturally appreciate it and promote it. But the most important is probably the experience problem. After many years of technological development, there are more motor vibration adaptation scenes, larger motor volume, better tuning, and it is difficult to be picked out by us. The three aspects are in harmony with each other, so making the users “quite interested” is natural.

What Is A Horizontal Linear Motor?

Regarding this issue, the director of Xiaomi’s mobile phone system software department has made a more detailed scientific introduction.

I have summed up a few useful ones. As for the vibration effect of Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro that everyone is most concerned about, the following will be a detailed introduction. Now let’s take a brief look at those things about mobile phone motors!

The motor is the source of the mobile phone’s vibration. According to its working principle, it is mainly divided into the linear motor and eccentric rotor motor. Before introducing the linear motor, let’s talk about the traditional rotor motor.

The principle is very simple, that is, a small motor carries an eccentric rotor in a circular motion, and the vibration feeling is generated by the eccentric motion of the rotor. Its advantages are small module space occupation, low cost, and relatively simple control circuit and logic.

However, its shortcomings are also very prominent. It is difficult to achieve an effective emergency stop when the rotor rotates, which causes a sluggish and loose experience.

While the linear motor is different, and its working principle is more complicated. To put it simply: the linear motor relies on AC voltage to drive the voice coil equipped with the compression, spring connection and movable mass. Driven by spring resonance, the voice coil makes the entire actuator vibrate, which in turn generates a vibration of the whole machine.

The advantage is that the response speed is fast, it will be not sluggish, and the vibration effect is very strong. However, for the purpose of fully releasing its performance, in addition to meeting certain requirements in terms of volume, it is necessary to do a good job of tuning.

Additionally, linear motors are divided into the circular (Z-axis) linear motor and horizontal (X / Y-axis) linear motor. The so-called circular linear motor has a movement direction along the Z-axis, which is limited by the thickness of the mobile phone, and its vibration stroke is short. While the movement direction of the horizontal linear motor is in the XY plane and is not restricted by the thickness, so its vibration stroke will be longer and the vibration will be much stronger than the former.

To sum up, there are three types of motors currently used in mobile phones, and their effects are: horizontal linear motors> Z-axis linear motors> eccentric rotor motors. Certainly, the cost and technical difficulty of the horizontal linear motor are relatively high, and the occupied space is relatively large. So far, the most powerful linear motor in mobile phones is Apple’s Taptic Engine.

Which manufacturer has the most powerful linear motor? How does the Mi 9 Pro rank?

This time, Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro has made the linear motor a key selling point, according to Chinese officials, it adopts good materials and is well-tuned.

The Mi 9 Pro is equipped with a horizontal linear motor, the so-called “good motor”, with a size of 10×10×3.5mm and a volume of 350 cubic millimeters, which is second only to the X-axis linear motor of the iPhone.

The start-stop time can reach 10ms, and the tactile feedback is very sensitive and clean. It seems that the vibration effect of Mi 9 Pro should be very good!

But the so-called “disadvantages come from the comparison”, what level of Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro’s vibration effect is in the comparison of other manufacturers? For this, I went to the experience store to try it out, and I will share the true feelings below.

Compared with the previous iPhone 8P, Meizu 16s, Huawei Mate 30 Pro and Samsung Note 10 +, the vibration of Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro is not as good as that of Meizu 16s, but almost the same as that of Huawei M30 Pro.

It is also much worse than Samsung Note10 +, with a lot of adaptable scenes and a nice vibration but a little bit less force. Needless to say the vibration of the iPhone, the volume is more than doubled, and vibration tuning is unmatched.

If the above models are ranked according to the effect of vibration, it should be: iPhone＞Meizu 16s Pro＞Samsung Note 10＞Mi 9 Pro, so although the vibration of Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro is better than any previous Xiaomi phone, it is still slightly under-represented compared to other manufacturers. But this doesn’t stop the Mi 9 Pro from being the Xiaomi phone with the best vibration ever.

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