The Best Of CES

Fisker’s new luxury EMotion electric sedan is coming in 2020 and it looks drop-dead stunning inside and out. With a carbon fibre chassis, Level 4 autonomous driving technology, a fast-charging battery that’s expected to get a 400-mile range, and a top speed of 160 miles per hour, the EMotion might be the Tesla killer everyone’s been waiting for. Bonus points: Those hot, futuristic butterfly doors that open upwards at an angle.

At a whopping 146-inches, Samsung’s massive “The Wall” 4K TV is one of the largest (if not the biggest) TVs unveiled at CES 2018. Billed as the world’s first “modular TV,” Samsung says the display can be built to any custom size you want (in theory, at least). And though it’s not the thinnest or highest resolution TV ever made, The Wall’s use of Micro LEDs gives it a few picture-quality advantages over OLED TVs: greater brightness, better contrast, more vibrant colours, and reduced burn-in.

Who says TVs need to be flat? That’s the entire idea behind LG’s eye-popping 65-inch rollable 4K OLED display. Designed for portability and easy storage, the rollable TV is like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. This prototype display also isn’t limited to the traditional 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. With the press of a button, the TV can roll down into its base and basically crop itself to 21:9 aspect ratio to better display ultra-wide films without letterboxing (the black bars on the top and bottom on a video).

Gaming company Razer is back with another wild concept device. This time, it’s Project Linda, a laptop dock for its Razer Phone. Slot the phone into space where there would normally be a trackpad, and you’ve now got a 13.3-inch laptop with a full-sized Chroma-lit keyboard and extra computer ports. Companies have been trying to transform your phone into a laptop for years only to fail miserably. But if there’s any company that can make weird ideas work, it’s Razer.

Sony’s Aibo is probably the cutest gadget of the year. The robot dog made its grand return at CES 2018, and it’s just too adorable. With OLED eyes for better expressions, voice controls, motion-detection, and smarter intelligence downloaded directly from the cloud, the new Aibo improves on the original in every way. The only question is: Would you pay $2,000 for a Robo pup or is that still super weird?

Nobody has time to sit around folding clothes all day long. Enter FoldiMate’s clothes-folding robot. Put your clothes into the machine and it’ll fold them up and dispense them into a neat pile. The robot’s still a prototype, but if all goes this nearly $1,000 convenience could become a reality in 2019.

The Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro are both fueled by the Kirin 970 64-bit octa-core processor, which is Huawei’s all-new flagship CPU. Both the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro come with a 4,000mAh non-removable battery, while both phones sport ‘FullView’ displays. The Huawei Mate 10 comes with a 5.9-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) FullView RGBW HDR display, while the Mate 10 Pro features a 6-inch fullHD+ (2160 x 1080) OLED HDR panel. The Huawei Mate 10 includes 4GB of RAM and 64GB of native storage, while the Mate 10 Pro comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Android 8.0 Oreo comes pre-installed on both the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro.

Nanoleaf’s funky, modular, triangle-shaped smart lights that you can slap onto a wall or ceiling now have a quirky 12-sided remote. The die-shaped Nanoleaf Remote is compatible with Apple’s HomeKit and lets you switch between different automated smart home scenes whenever you flip it on any of its sides. At a show dominated by voice-controlled smart home devices, it’s kind of refreshing to see a simple motion-based smart home remote.

AR is the talk of the town these days, but VR’s nowhere near dead. HTC’s Vive Pro builds on the original Vive VR headset with a 78 per cent increase in screen resolution, improved 3D audio and noise-cancelling microphones, and a tweaked design for a comfier wear. A wireless transmitter sold separately can be attached for a cord-free virtual experience. The changes may seem small, but taken all together, they’re just the upgrades VR needs to make it a little more realistic.

Although this product does have a 29-inch display — the new LG InstaView ThinQ fridge might just be the coolest refrigerator on the planet. It’s packed from top to bottom with awesome new tech, but the star of the show is the touchscreen display that runs webOS and supports all sorts of smart features. Knock on the screen twice, however, and it instantly becomes transparent to show you what’s in the fridge behind the door without having to open it.

Buddy is the family robot, on three wheels and with a cute little digital face. The product has been developed by Blue Frog Robotics and has been immensely successful on Indiegogo. Buddy can be used to set reminders, set alarms, read messages aloud, recommend recipes, help kids with their homework, play music, answer calls, and fully integrate with your digital home management systems. Overall, Buddy appears to be a successful integration of a number technologies; facial recognition, smart assistant, and robotics just to name a few, this might explain why it received the Best of Innovation Award for Robotics and Drones this year.