In-person events and networking events are off the table, but the all-digital show must go on. Here’s what PCMag analysts expect to see at the reimagined CES 2021.
(Image: Getty) For decades, tech journalists have kicked off the new year with a trip to Las Vegas for a little gambling and a lot of tech news. But this year, with COVID-19 still raging out of control around the globe, CES 2021 is an all-digital affair. In-person events and networking events are off the table, but major tech companies that have grown accustomed to running online events are doing the same for CES. This year’s show runs from Jan.11-14; we’ve already seen a few pre-show announcements, but here’s what PCMag analysts expect to see at the reimagined CES 2021. Laptops CES is frequently chock full of innovative laptop designs, and despite the show being virtual this year, we don’t expect the stable of innovations to subside. In fact, we expect the 2021 show to be brimming with new laptops at every price and feature set. There will undoubtedly be a gaggle of inexpensive Windows laptops and Chromebooks, since they have been hard to come by over the past few months as people working and learning from home have snapped them up. Even before the show officially started, Samsung announced a new midrange Chromebook, and we expect other manufacturers to follow suit. (Samsung Galaxy Chromebook2) There will also be plenty of new cutting-edge features available for premium laptops. Expect more OLED screens and more models available with 5G. Laptops aimed at enterprise IT customers will also be in abundance this year, as Fortune 500 companies, community colleges, and every organization in between adapts to the new work-from-home environment. New Dell Latitude and Lenovo ThinkPad models aimed at business users are typically some of the hottest laptops at CES. As for quirky designs, we’ve already seen several prototypes and concepts announced, including a lookalike Nintendo Switch laptop from Lenovo, complete with a game controller. We also expect plenty of other gaming innovations. Rumors and leaks suggest that Intel may announce more details about its next-generation CPUs for gaming rigs. We might also see new laptop chips from AMD and Nvidia; both companies are holding press conferences during the show. —Tom BrantTom Brant and Matt BuzziMatt BuzziPC Components Though most of the component-introduction madness—GeForce, Ryzen, Radeon—from late 2020 has passed,2021 is already forming up a likely strong second wave, with rumored releases from Intel, Nvidia, and AMD all potentially just around the corner. First up: Intel. The company has had a rough go of it over the past couple of years, with AMD hammering it on all sides on desktop silicon (and now, to an extent, mobile chips) and winning nearly every fight it enters. Intel hopes that its next (and reportedly final) deployment of its aging 14nm lithography, chips based on the next “Rocket Lake” microarchitecture, will be enough to carry its stack of desktop CPUs over the line until the company can reliably produce its own 7nm options at scale. The company hasn’t yet announced any official plans to present “Rocket Lake” at CES, but we’ll keep an ear to the ground as more rumors circulate about an early 2021 release date for Rocket Lake chips. (Last week, it was leaked that motherboards based on the Z590 and B560 chipsets would be launching imminently, and just this week Gigabyte confirmed that Rocket Lake CPU silicon should be due out in March.)(Image: Intel) Meanwhile, on the GPU front, both AMD and Nvidia spent the second half of 2020 duking it out, with the latter’s GeForce RTX 3080 going toe-to-toe with AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT (and coming out the victor on the other side). Now, both Nvidia and AMD have rumors swirling about new introductions into their 30 Series and 6000 Series of desktop graphics cards, respectively, which would further extend and complicate the midrange, with options like the GeForce RTX 3060 (possibly called GeForce RTX 3060 Ultra) and Radeon RX 6700 and Radeon RX 6700 XT planned for launches sometime in 2021.2020 might be a hard year to top in the world of component releases, but 2021 is kicking things off in full gear. Stay tuned as Dr. Lisa Su takes to the virtual stage at this year’s CES keynote on Tuesday, Jan.
