CES 2021 doesn’t officially kick off until next week, but that hasn’t stopped Samsung, Sony and Panasonic from announcing new products a few days early.
CES 2021 may not officially start until Monday, January 11 2021, but that isn’t stopping some of the world’s most well-known electronics manufacturers from announcing the latest TVs, laptops and smart devices ahead of the show. In the last few days alone, Samsung has announced its new Neo QLED TVs that offer brighter, more colorful pictures; Sony unveiled its new Cognitive XR Processor as a successor to the X1 Ultimate and Acer has announced the next generation of Chromebooks. For tech lovers, it’s been a very good week. That said, Monday is the day that everyone will get to watch along as LG, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony take to the virtual stage to talk about their other upcoming innovations. You can expect to hear a lot more about the next-gen 8K TVs and IoT smart devices, plus a few surprises at the Samsung Unpacked event that’s happening in the middle of CES week. Once the keynotes are over, the CTA (the company behind the event) says that it’s opening a virtual show hall that exhibitors will be able to show off their wares and answer questions from attendees and retailers about their new products. Exhibitors will be able to hold meetings of up to 30 people at a time and chat in real-time with one another. It’s all the practical parts of CES, basically, without all of us crowding into the Las Vegas Convention Center. So what, exactly, are we going to see at this year’s show? This guide will run you through our predictions for Sony, Samsung, AMD, and more based on pre-show rumors and what they got up to at last year’s event. A press release on the CES website originally put the CES 2021 dates at January 6-9, however those dates have since shifted to January 11-14,2021. That first day of the show will be keynotes from AMD, General Motors, Verizon and the CTA themselves, plus press conferences from LG, Sony and Samsung. Here’s the complete January 11 press day schedule provided by the CTA: In a typical year, CES takes over Las Vegas for nearly a week, with tech brands and press coming from all over the world to meet, make deals, and cover the latest announcements all together. How any of that will happen when it’s online-only is kind of hard to foresee, but it’s something the CTA has been hammering out for months, so we’re expecting things to run smoothly. Future CES events have definitive dates, too. CES 2022 and CES 2023 are scheduled for January 5-8, while CES 2024 is pencilled in for January 9-12. Samsung CES 2021 news Samsung CES 2021 previews Keynote time: January 11 at 9 am EST on Samsung’s global news website. CES is always a big show for Samsung. It’s the place the company picks to roll out its latest QLED TVs, concept screens and monstrous custom-installs, plus innovations in the computing and phone space. Last year saw the rotating Samsung Sero TV unveiled, as well as the zero-bezel Q950TS 8K QLED and confirmation of two more 8K TVs for 2020. We’re expecting an even bigger 8K range for CES 2021, and possibly (if we’re lucky) news of a commercially-available transparent TV or sunlight-emitting display. Samsung usually announces a slew of soundbars to go with its new TVs too, and we’re expecting the same from CES 2021. The brand’s 2020 soundbar range, which included the HW-Q950T and HW-Q900T, came with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio, alongside SmartThings supports and Amazon Alexa voice control. At CES 2021, we could see Samsung soundbars with Google Assistant voice control as well as Alexa, and more connection options than their predecessors. We’d also like to see Samsung take a few cues from Sonos with the implementation of Dolby’s latest TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus sound codecs to deliver lossless Hi-Res Audio. Sony CES 2021 news Keynote time: January 11 at 5 pm EST (location TBD) Sony has just released its latest noise-cancelling headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM4 (which we’ve dubbed the best headphones of 2020), so it’s unlikely that we’ll see a new pair of flagship over-ear headphones from the tech giant debut at CES 2021. However, it’s now been a year since the brand’s true wireless earbuds, the Sony WF-1000XM3, were launched – and that means CES 2021 could be when Sony launches a fourth-gen version of the best true wireless earbuds you can buy today. The Sony WF-1000XM4 could come with some of the new features we’ve seen in the WH-1000XM4, including Speak-to-Chat, adaptive noise cancellation, and audio upscaling. CES 2020 was largely quiet for Sony though, with a dud PS5 logo unveiling and only a small number of new TV announcements. We’ll be keeping an eye out for more 48-inch models of its existing OLED sets, and new developments in its Acoustic Surface Audio tech, which vibrates the TV panel itself to emit sound.
