Best of CES 2019

CES is barely over before the new year has arrived. It's a shame, because we would have loved to have been entertained by new gadgets, exciting developments and design studies for even longer. To allow the International Consumer Electronics Show 2019 to linger a little longer, we present the best of the past few days here. In our opinion, these products were the highlights of this year's trade fair.

Alienware Area-51m

The disadvantage of notebooks is that they are less upgradeable than desktop computers. The Alienware Area-51m with its completely new design is set to change this somewhat. Dell has promised us that it will be possible to upgrade the GPU of this high-performance notebook in future using its own module format. The GPUs come from Nvidia's GeForce RTX family, the most powerful configurable GPU is the RTX 2080. Otherwise, the notebook with 17.3-inch Full HD display offers up to 64 GB RAM, space for two M.2 SSDs and a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD. A ninth-generation Core i desktop processor with six or eight cores is at work inside.

Nvidia mobile RTX graphics cards

The new mobile RTX graphics cards are set to bring ray tracing to laptops. Nvidia has announced the RTX 2080 and RTX 2060 laptop models and claims that 40 new laptops with RTX chips will be unveiled at CES alone. 17 of these are to come with a Max-Q design. It will be interesting to see which notebook makes it to Switzerland first. I can well imagine that the time will have come by the end of January and we will be able to tackle the first notebook review including ray tracing tests.

HTC Vive "Cosmos" and "Pro Eye"

There are new VR glasses from HTC. With the Vive Cosmos, the company wants to make it easier to get started in virtual reality. The glasses are designed to work wirelessly, be easy to use and do not require a base station (gaming PC). The Cosmos is therefore also suitable for gaming on the go.

HTC has equipped the Vive Pro with eye tracking. With the Pro Eye model, you can navigate through menus using your line of sight. A really cool feature - it will be interesting to see to what extent this will also be used in games in the future.

Sony GTK-PG10 Beer Speaker

Wow, innovation at last. This Bluetooth party speaker not only offers enough juice for 13 hours of playback, but also holds up to four beers. Of course, the top of the speaker is also splash-proof. In addition to the option of playing Beer Pong, the speaker also has an outdoor party mode, in which the DSP automatically optimises the audio settings for outdoor playback.

Kohler Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet

A toilet with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration. You just have to have that, don't you? Anyway, it also has personalised cleaning and drying functions, a heated seat and much more for your bottom.

Ikea Fyrtur Smart Blinds

Intelligent blinds from Ikea. Sure, there was something like this before, but not at a price of 113 to 181 dollars. Previously, you had to spend three to five times as much. In addition to internet connectivity and automated control, the devices also offer a remote control and support for Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant.

Royole FlexPai

The first smartphone with a foldable display is here. It is surprising that it does not come from Samsung or Huawei, as both manufacturers announced something similar months ago. Royole will equip the device with the successor processor to the Snapdragon 845 on release. It will be launched with 128 or 256 GB of memory and 6 or 8 GB of RAM. The large foldable AMOLED panel has a diagonal of 7.8 inches. If you unfold the mobile, you get a tablet with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 1920 x 1440 pixels.

Samsung MicroLED TV

Last year, Samsung presented "The Wall". A 146-inch TV based on MicroLEDs. If 146 inches is too much for you, you can now also have the TV in the consumer-friendly 75-inch format. If you want more, you can also get it in an incredible 219-inch format. With MicroLED displays, micrometre-sized LEDs, which emit light independently as with OLEDs, form a screen in close proximity to each other. Thanks to the inorganic material, MicroLEDs are said to have a longer service life than OLEDs. They also offer great flexibility to enable TVs of any size.

LG 65-inch rollable TV

Last year it was still a prototype, now it will go on sale this year. LG's 65-inch OLED TV R. If the TV on your living room wall is a thorn in your side, you could be one of LG's customers in the future. The ingenious thing about this TV is that it comes in a sideboard housing and can be rolled up at any time. When it comes to technology, LG only wants to offer you the best of the best. In an upcoming review, we will find out for you what that is in addition to HDMI 2.1-capable connections, HDR support and Atmos speakers.

Google Assistant

Google integrates the Assistant into Maps and thus offers additional navigation functions. You can use voice commands to share your arrival time with friends, reply to text messages, start music and podcasts or search for and edit locations on your route.

You can now use the Assistant as an interpreter on Smart Speaker and Smart Display. Google listens alternately to the two languages to be translated and does its best to avoid embarrassing translation errors.

In order to bring the Assistant to even more devices, Google has announced the Connect platform, which should enable hardware manufacturers to integrate it easily.