CES 2022 may have been a hybrid show that saw companies pull out weeks before, but there was plenty on show. Here’s the best of CES 2022.
Another year has come and gone, and another CES is over. CES 2022 was very different compared to ones past, as despite a physical show for the first time since the pandemic began, many people chose not to travel. On the ground in Las Vegas, some companies were present while many initially planned to go and chose to bow out in the weeks leading up to the show as the Omicron variant emerged and became a wild threat. Yet, as the phrase says, the show must go on and so CES 2022 certainly did. For the companies that were there, plenty of products were on show and while the show floor was nowhere near as busy as it usually would be, it was still a showcase of invention. From cars to the smart home, from computing to mobile and all the categories in between, here are Team XDA’s picks for the Best of CES 2022, some of which we saw in person at the show. If CES is good for one thing, it’s wild and crazy ideas like the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 3. The first two generations of the product were crazy enough, with an E Ink display in the lid. This one has a different secondary display, a full-color eight-inch touchscreen next to the keyboard. At this point, you’re probably asking why you’d need such a thing, and that’s a reasonable thing to ask. It has multiple uses. For example, in the image above, it zooms in on a portion of the screen, and then you can use the pen to edit the image with precision. You can pinch to zoom, or you can scroll to different parts of the screen. Another thing you can do is take handwritten notes. If you’re reading a book or on a call, you can take notes on that eight-inch display. Microsoft Whiteboard is on there by default. This is a pretty powerful collaboration feature, since Whiteboard automatically syncs in real-time. You can draw while on a meeting, and others will see it while you’re doing it. They can collaborate in real-time too, but they’ll probably need a second device because they’re not as cool as you with your ThinkBook Plus Gen 3. Let’s not forget, it also has a 17.3-inch 21:10 display. The giant ultra-wide display results in that big chassis that allows for a full-size keyboard and an eight-inch touchscreen. Check out our hands-on article for the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 3 here. The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a brand-new entry into the XPS series, and it’s not replacing the standard XPS 13 because frankly, this is a pretty radical change. In fact, if you’re looking at the image above, you might be asking all kinds of questions, like where the touchpad is. It’s still there, but you can’t see it. The touchpad on the Dell XPS 13 Plus is entirely border-less. It’s also got a brand-new keyboard, with larger keys that aren’t islanded. Somehow, there’s something even more controversial than a touchpad you can’t even see. The regular F-keys that you’re used to are gone, replaced by capacitive keys. By default, they show the shortcuts that you’re used to, and if you hit the Fn key, they turn into the F-keys that you’re used to. Some have compared it to Apple’s failed Touch Bar. Still, there’s no denying this device’s futuristic design and that it comes with the quality of a Dell XPS. You can check out our hands-on of the Dell XPS 13 Plus here. Sure, a big 17-inch screen is cool, but do you know what’s even cooler? A 17-inch screen that folds. Indeed, ASUS announced just the second-ever Windows PC with a foldable display. While it is bigger, what makes this super interesting is that it’s the first in a broader wave of foldable devices that are coming. At CES 2022, Intel also announced its first Evo spec for foldable-display devices, and the ASUS Zenbook 17 Fold is the first to meet that spec. That means that another way it differentiates itself from Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold is that it has 12th-generation processors of the 9W variety. Previously, foldables could only use Intel’s Lakefield chips, which weren’t very good. The resolution of the 17.3-inch 4:3 OLED display is 2,560×1,920, and you can stand it up for one giant display. When folded, it turns into two 12.5-inch 1,920×1,280 3:2 screens, and there’s a keyboard that you can insert inside of it. Unfortunately, ASUS hasn’t announced pricing and availability yet, but nothing with Intel’s U-series processors are scheduled to ship before this spring. There’s a lot of new silicon at CES 2022, including Intel’s 12th-generation processors, AMD’s Ryzen 6000 chips, and even a teaser of its Ryzen 7000 desktop processors. One chip-maker that might fly under the radar a bit is MediaTek, but the company has a brand-new processor for Chromebooks in the high-end tier. Acer is the first to use the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 with its Chromebook Spin 513. The Kompanio 1380 is a chipset that’s competing more along the lines of an Intel Core i3, and indeed, MediaTek is a leader in ARM Chromebooks. However, until now, those Chromebooks were entry-level to lower mid-tier. The new chips that the firm is producing are hitting the upper mid-tier to the high end. As for the Chromebook Spin 513 itself is pretty great too, chipset aside. It has a 13.5-inch 3:2 display with a 2,256×1,504 resolution and 7.7mm bezels. Given the new aspect ratio, it’s 18% taller when compared to a 16:9 screen. This makes a big difference for productivity. It’s also MIL-STD-810H certified, has DTS Audio, and has Wi-Fi 6, all for $599.99. With so many amazing announcements, I almost feel like Dell’s UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor has fallen off of the radar; but it didn’t for me. When Dell showed me this product at a pre-briefing weeks ahead of the show, I felt like I was seeing something special. Sure, it’s a 32-inch 4K monitor, right? It’s so much more than that. It’s also for a 4K webcam built into it, which is a really big deal. After all,4K webcams aren’t very common to begin with. The two main options are the Dell UltraSharp 4K Webcam and the Logitech BRIO. The UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor actually includes the UltraSharp 4K Webcam; it’s just a lot smaller because a lot of the internal components are built into the monitor itself. On top of that, it’s got echo-canceling dual-array microphones and 14W speakers. Between display quality, video capture quality, microphone quality, and speaker quality, everything is just the best you can get. Integrating all of that into a single unit eliminates a lot of cables from your desk too. If you spend a lot of time on video calls and meetings, there is simply no better monitor to use, and it’s hard to imagine how you could even improve on it. It is the ultimate monitor in the work from home era. The Dell UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor is going to be available on March 29. Dell didn’t announce pricing, but it won’t be cheap. Samsung’s pre-CES 2022 keynote by CEO JH Han focused on a few key areas, one of which was sustainability. The company unveiled a range of sustainability measures, but arguably the most important is the Eco Remote. Although this is technically not new as it was launched with TVs last year, the Eco Remote is going to ship with every TV launched by the company this year which should go a long way to preventing the unwanted disposal of millions of batteries every year.
