Las Vegas/Berlin (dpa/tmn) – Corona, delivery problems, the lack of chips? Does not matter! Even in a reduced form, the CES technology fair at the beginning of the year provides all sorts of insights into what will end up in German living rooms, home offices or trouser pockets in the future.
TVs are getting brighter, smarter and more versatile
The future of televisions will continue to be Micro LEDs – mini, self-illuminating pixels for extremely detailed image display. Samsung and LG showed displays with the extremely small light-emitting diodes.
Despite all the enthusiasm for size, color representation and picture quality: the sometimes huge televisions still don’t have living room prices. Average showers will probably have to wait a few more years.
The options that are more affordable for normal televisions are in the OLED area. LG in particular is showing many new models up to more compact sizes of 42 inches at CES. The more expensive models now have up to 20 percent brighter LEDs – called “OLED evo”.
Sony is now calling its improved self-illuminating displays QD-OLED. The illuminated dots installed in the Bravia A95K, for example, should last longer than before. There are also “normal” OLED TVs: the A90K series with 48 and 42-inch models and the A80K series with 77, 65 and 55 inches.
Turn on the telly and go
At Samsung, the models à la The Frame or The Serif have been technically renewed in the design area. In addition, there is now Neo QLED – these are Samsung’s QLED screens with fine-resolution backlighting for better illumination of individual image areas. More speakers and a special processor should assign the sound to the right area on the screen – in 2021 this technology was only in the top models.
Samsung offers a wall bracket for younger television refusers and smartphone fans. The television can be turned into portrait format – hello social media and portrait videos. There are new services for this. For example a new gaming hub for some 2022 models. This should allow easier access to cloud games from the game streaming platforms GeForce Now (Nvidia), Stadia (Google) and Utomik. For a subscription fee, you can stream these games to your TV.
OLED display in more and more notebooks
Slimmer, faster, better for video games, better for mobile work: notebook manufacturers from Acer and Asus to HP and Lenovo are showing new devices in Las Vegas and online. Inside are the latest Intel and AMD chips and, increasingly, OLED displays.
This is the case, for example, in Lenovo’s Thinkpads Z13, Z16 or X1 or in the Zenbooks from Asus. In the gaming sector, Nvidia has presented the RTX 3080 Ti, which according to the supplier is the most powerful notebook graphics unit to date – it is found in computers from Asus, MSI or Razer, for example.
Provided you have the necessary change, notebooks can also be playful this year. This applies, for example, to the Thinkbook Plus Gen 3 from Lenovo with its second screen next to the keyboard. Or for the Zenbook 17 Fold from Asus, which can be folded from a tablet to a notebook to a reader. The Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition has a second mini-OLED screen in the laptop lid and is certified for space use.
More screen for games
Because playing doesn’t just require the right computer, the range of screens specially designed for video games is also growing – some of them are the size of a television. The ROG Swift OLED (PG42UQ) measures 42 inches diagonally, the Acer CG48 comes to 48 inches. Both OLED displays with 4K resolution (3840 to 2160 pixels) should also display fast video games from PC and consoles smoothly with fast pixel switching times and refresh rates of 120 Hertz and more. And sophisticated cooling should protect the self-illuminating OLEDs from premature heat death.
ROG hasn’t named a price yet, and compared to gaming-ready TVs, Acer’s CG48 isn’t a bargain at just under 2200 euros. The price is to be justified with extras tailored to gamers, such as a large number of connections, image synchronization technology or the ability to charge a laptop.
Continued focus on mobile working
“Hybrid working environments” is a term that now appears in almost all ideas relating to business notebooks and screens. Roughly speaking, two trends are emerging.
Trend number one is a complete device like the HP Elitebook 860 G9. The 16-inch notebook with Windows 11 and the latest Ryzen processors from AMD is said to be a good compromise for stationary and mobile work. Here, but also in many other models, there are high-resolution cameras for the inevitable video conferences. AI-supported microphones and improved loudspeakers should make the sound as well as the picture coherent.
The other trend and at the same time a continuation from 2021 are smart screens – smart in that they are not only a display device, but also a hub for mouse, keyboard and other devices and supply the notebook with power at the same time. Goodbye cable clutter.
Not a big focus on smartphones
When it comes to smartphones, it is better not to have too high expectations of CES 2022, but there were definitely a few new products.
In addition to Samsung’s Galaxy S21 FE 5G – a slightly improved and cheaper version of the 2021 flagship S21 – the Chinese manufacturer OnePlus also gives a preview of the OnePlus 10 Pro. This comes again with a camera developed together with Hasselblad, including a 150-degree wide-angle camera. While the Galaxy S21 FE 5G is already available, the OnePlus will first be launched in China and later in the year in Europe.
Android should become even more like iOS – but now really
Android will get some new features this year that Apple already offers. With the multitude of providers and devices, this takes a little longer – for example, fast pairing of headphones with Chromebooks, Google TV or other Android TV devices.
Bluetooth-enabled headphones will soon automatically switch to the device being used, even under Android. If supported, there should soon also be spatial audio on Android – i.e. sound output depending on your own position in the room.
Google also wants to make cross-device work and data exchange easier. The file sub-function Nearby Share will soon also work with Windows. Google cooperates here with Acer, HP and Intel. Chromebooks should also be able to call up pictures and videos from the smartphone “in the coming months” via the Phone Hub, and SMS and message management will also be improved. Smartphones running Wear OS will soon be able to unlock Android smartphones and Chromebooks.
The Metaverse and other absurd things
No trade fair without big concepts: If Silicon Valley has its way, the next virtual revolution is imminent – the Metaverse. In short, this is a virtual 3D world: shopping, meeting people, playing games, creating worlds and much more – all of this should soon be available with virtual reality glasses and other hardware.
The Facebook parent company Meta is banking heavily on this hardware-hungry future, and the notebook manufacturer MSI is already introducing the title “Meta-Ready” for its high-performance gaming notebooks. In addition, exhibitors will show, for example, a vest that is intended to make touches and other sensory events from the Metaverse tangible and other ideas for the still nebulous Metaverse worlds. What will come of it remains to be seen.
Samsung’s NF is a bit more specific, but still new territory for many consumersT option for TV. With their help, TV buyers should also be able to buy and view digital art that has been confirmed as original and unique by NFT (non-fungible tokens) and assigned to a specific person by certificate. An example: The first SMS ever sent was recently sold with NFT for almost 110,000 euros – and could then be displayed at home on the Samsung TV.
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