The best from CES 2019

We barely escape the manic-ness of the end of the year before we’re thrown into the chaos of Consumer Electronics Show, the annual consumer tech convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s our first taste of what big innovations we could expect during the year. Here are just some of the gadgets and technologies we’re hoping to see in stores (or restaurants—more on that later).

HP Spectre x360

For the first time in 13 years, HP is bringing an OLED display to its 15-inch Spectre x360 laptop. It’ll come with HDR support and wide gamut (100 percent DCI-P3 coverage), high-contrast screen technology. HP will pair this with an 8^th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB PCIe SSD storage. No word yet on battery life but expect the usual 16-hour capacity of the current Spectre x360 15 models to take a bit of a hit.

Apple & TVs

Here’s something you probably didn’t expect to hear. Apple, a company that generally keeps away from CES, has made its presence felt in a big way. One of its biggest announcements is for the first time ever an iTunes Movies and TV Shows app is coming to Samsung’s 2018 and 2019 TVs. It’ll give you access to your iTunes movie and TV show library as well as give you the ability to buy and rent content through the dedicated app. Aside from this, the Samsung TVs are also getting Apple AirPlay 2 support, letting you stream content from your Apple devices straight to these smart TVs. Apple and Samsung haven’t specified yet which countries are getting the feature but 100 countries will get access to the iTunes app, while 150 countries will get AirPlay 2 support.

Other TV manufacturers, like LG and Vizio, also get access to AirPlay and HomeKit technology. It seems Apple’s walls are finally coming down, perhaps in time for the launch of the company’s long-rumored streaming video service.

LG Signature OLED TV R

TVs as works of art is a concept we’ll be seeing more and more. Here’s one that LG has been working on for years but now it’s almost ready for primetime. The Signature OLED TV R features a 65-inch rollable OLED display. You can have it at full height and enjoy great viewing experience. Lower it a bit to watch 21:9 ultra-widescreen movies sans letterbox bars. Have it in the new “line view” mode, which shows a quarter of the screen. This mode displays a special home page that can show everything from the clock with weather, personal photos, music, or LG’s Home Dashboard to control your other smart home devices. Or you can roll it away and just listen to music through the Dolby Atmos sound system. LG guarantees it’s tested the rolling mechanism 55,000 times, giving you a good number of years to turn this TV on and off.

Nissan Invisible-to-Visible

“See” an accident or a crossing pedestrian before you actually see it. Or drive right into a parking space that’s opening up. Or learn how to drive better with the help of a professional driver. Or have a loved one appear as an augmented reality avatar in your passenger seat (because why not?). These are just some of the ideas Nissan wants to put forward with its Invisible-to-Visible technology.

Sony Master Series Z9G 8K

Sony takes 8K to the extreme. And by extreme, we mean the biggest it could. The Master Series Z9G 8K LCD comes in two gigantic sizes: 85 inches and 98 inches. These two 8K TVs are updated with Sony’s Picture Processor X1 Ultimate image processor as well as X-Reality PRO optimized for 8K. You’re promised great-looking content no matter what the native resolution is, which is an important factor as there isn’t any 8K content available right now. The Z9G also has Netflix Calibrated Mode and it’s part of the IMAX Enhanced certification program. This 8K model is also an Android TV model with Google Assistant and it’s compatible with Google Home and Amazon Echo smart speakers.

Dell XPS 13

The Dell XPS 13 is better than it’s ever been. It’s a great sleek laptop and one that’s being attributed to having started the skinny bezel trend in the segment. The downside to trimming down these bezels was the company tried putting the front-facing camera elsewhere, which provided us with iterations of the camera placed at the bottom of the display and providing us with an unflattering angle. Dell circumvents this issue this year with what we know as the smallest camera in a notebook yet. At 2.25mm, Dell was able to put the webcam back on top of the InfinityEdge display. Aside from this the XPS 13 gets Dolby Vision for the first time. This laptop is powered by the latest quad-core 8^th-gen Intel Core processors. There’s also a new frost anodized exterior color option.

Lenovo Smart Tab

Lenovo takes a different approach with this 2-in-1 device. Giving you both access to Google’s Android ecosystem and Amazon Alexa’s capabilities, specifically those you get from the Amazon Echo Show. The Lenovo Smart Tab combines these two worlds. It comes in two versions: the entry-level M10 and the premium P10. The M10 has a soft-touch finish back, up to 32GB storage, two front-facing Dolby Atmos speakers, a 5-megapixel camera at the back and 2-megapixel camera in front, and a 4,850mAh battery. The P10 comes with a dual-glass design, up to 64GB of storage, four front-facing Dolby Atmos speakers, an 8-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front shooter, and a 7,000mAh battery. Both run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor and have a 10.1-inch Full HD LCD IPS display to offer a similar experience once docked into the bundled smart dock. Docking the tablet there enables the Echo Show capabilities. The dock itself comes with two three-watt, full-range speakers and three far-field mics. You get a clone of sorts of the Echo Show right from the tablets’ screens. At launch, it doesn’t get Alexa’s communication suite though, so no making calls just yet.

Acer Predator Triton 900

Gaming notebooks have never been known for their subtlety and the Acer Predator Triton 900 is proof of that. This 2-in-1 laptop packs in the best-in-class specs and pairs that with a 4K 17-inch IPS touch display that flips around in different modes. It can be flipped over backward; used in easel mode that brings the screen forward; stand mode to simulate a tablet-like experience; or in standard laptop mode. It’s equipped with Intel’s latest hexa-core 8th-gen Core i7 processors and NVIDIA’s RTX 2080 graphics card. You get lightning fast NVMe PCIe SSDs and up to 32GB DDR4 RAM.

Harley-Davidson LiveWire

Harley-Davidson shared more details about its highly anticipated electric motorcycle at CES. The LiveWire gets priced at US$29,799 (approx. P1.5 million). It goes from 0 to 60mph in under 3.5 seconds. It requires no clutch or gear shifting, making it a simpler experience for new riders. According to Harley, the LiveWire can travel 110 city miles on a single charge, but we don’t know how this translates on the highway. A standard household outlet with Level 1 charger can juice this motorcycle back up or riders can head to public Level 3 DC Fast Charge stations for a quicker top-up. It comes with seven riding modes to choose from—four are standard and three are customizable. The LiveWire has a telematics system called H-D Connect. Here you get access to the bike’s vital stats including battery charging, service reminders, and even when the bike gets tampered or stolen. LiveWire owners can get this information through Harley’s connected app.  It comes in vivid black, yellow fuse, and orange fuse.

DJI Smart Controller

Instead of using your smartphone or tablet, DJI has a new Smart Controller for you Mavic 2 Zoom and Pro users. It comes with a 5.5-inch ultra-bright display and comes preloaded with DJI GO 4 and DJI Pilot apps. If you want to live stream your videos, SkyTalk is available here. It promises a battery life of 2.5 hours and can operate in temperatures as cold as -4°Fahrenheit and as hot as 104°Fahrenheit.

Hyundai Elevate

This concept car is made of walking, and that’s just what it will do. Or that is the hope. Hyundai’s Elevate concept is probably the strangest thing we’ve seen come out of CES but it’s designed to be a useful one. It can “walk” to help navigate difficult terrain, including those not of this world (yes, think space exploration). There is no actual full-sized concept right now, though. But we can’t wait to see it, if and when it does happen.