Best in Show: Our favourite tech from CES 2024
CES, or the Consumer Electronics Show, is the traditional start to the year of big tech releases with Samsung, LG, Sony and many more showing off what they all have in store.
Taking place in Las Vegas, CES is a massive showcase of products we’ll see on shelves in 2024 along with concepts and ideas that are a little further away. In the past, we’ve seen technologies like 8K and HDR take centre stage, while AI is the word on everyone’s lips this time around.
This is our look at our favourite new launches from CES 2024, all chosen by our team of experts. Below you’ll find everything from transparent TVs, innovative speakers, powerful gaming handhelds and more.
XGIMI Horizon Max
We were really impressed with the XGIMI Horizon Ultra when we reviewed it last year, with the portable smart projector capable of exceptional image quality and powerful audio. At CES 2024, the XGIMI Horizon Max was announced as a follow-up, now able to project an IMAX image on your wall for an even more immersive home theatre experience.
The Max is also smart enough to find the best possible area on your wall to project the image, freeing you up time to make sure the popcorn is ready.
Asus Zenbook Duo
The Asus ZenBook Duo may not be the first dual-screen laptop, but it’s potentially the most polished we’ve seen yet. It features two 14-inch touchscreens connected by a hinge. A bundled Bluetooth keyboard can snap into place on the bottom screen too, converting it into a conventional clamshell laptop.
This incredible versatility makes the Asus Zenbook Duo an incredibly useful device, especially with the sturdy built-in stand allowing to prop it up on a desk and use it like a dual monitor setup. There’s plenty of power under the hood too, with the new Intel Core Ultra ensuring this is fast enough for all of your productivity needs.
Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro
Asus has changed direction a little with the latest gaming-focussed ROG Phone, toning down the RGB-fulled design of its predecessors and paying a bit more attention to the cameras. The result? a gaming phone that actually has the potential to appeal to a wider audience.
Stalwart features of this series, like the fantastic AirTriggers, remain and with the Pro Edition there’s also a neat secondary display on the rear that can display the time, battery levels and more. There’s a proper telephoto camera too, an area we’ve always found wanting on other gaming smartphones.
Inside there’s Qualcomm’s latest 8 Gen 3 chip for some thumping gaming performance and the screen remains one of the fastest on the market too.
Samsung Music Frame
If you’re Samsung’s range of lifestyle Frame TVs then you’ll love the Music Frame. Instead of the TV, this is a very good sounding speaker that can be customised with various art pieces on the front.
It has been designed to blend seamlessly into, for example, an art wall and it can also be used as a wireless speaker for either music or TV audio.
Nvidia RTX 4070 Super
Nvidia’s big announcement for CES 2024 was the launch of the new Super graphics cards, offering performance tweaks on the existing range of RTX 4000 GPUs.
The Nvidia RTX 4070 Super may be the least powerful of the new trio, but it’s also the most impressive thanks to a remarkable 20% increase in CUDA Cores, and a higher boosted clock speed. Nvidia even claims this new Super card is more powerful than the RTX 3090, despite being available for just $599.
AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT
The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the latest desktop graphics card from team red, building upon the existing RX 7600 card by doubling the video memory and improving the clock speeds.
AMD claims these tweaks ensure the new graphics card is able to tackle 1440p gaming, despite being available for as little as $329. That’s unbelievable value, especially when you factor in the support for ray tracing.
MSI Claw
Hoping to be more than a simple Steam Deck rival, the MSI Claw handheld PC runs on an Intel Core Ultra chip, packs a huge battery and the ability to play both Windows and Android games thanks to the MSI App Player. Priced at $699, the Claw also packs a 7-inch 1080p display with 120Hz.
We found the Claw to be extremely comfortable to use and while it’s entering a crowded market, there’s every chance this could be the handheld gaming PC to go for.
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LG Signature OLED T
LG has launched a number of new OLED and QNED TVs at CES 2024, but none of them stood out quite as much as the Signature T – a true transparent OLED TV.
While the design hasn’t yet been finalised (and we’re not even sure we want to know how much this might cost) the tech is real and this transparent OLED TV should be making its way into people’s homes this year. LG has tweaked the software a lot to turn the transparent effect into a proper feature and there’s a contrast film that can be raised or lowered to give you a more traditional viewing experience.
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4
The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 are the most impressive true wireless headphones we’ve seen at CES this year, rocking support for Qualcomm’s AptX Lossless, which means you can enjoy lossless CD-quality audio on the move.
The new headphones have also seen upgrades to the ANC (active noise cancellation performance), while the battery life has been boosted up to 7.5 hours, with the wireless charging case pushing up the total stamina 30 hours between charges.
Sennheiser Momentum Sport
Here are any pair of Sennheiser true wireless headphones, but this time they’re packed with sporty features to please joggers. The headphones are able to track your heart rate through your ears, gathering useful data that can be synced up with apps from the likes of Apple, Garmin and Strava.
Other useful features include adaptive noise cancellation, IP55 waterproofing and a battery life of up to six hours for the buds themselves, potentially leaving enough time for you to even complete a marathon before requiring a recharge via the bundled case.
TCL NXTPAPER 14 Pro
At first glance, the TCL NXTPAPER 14 Pro looks like your everyday tablet, but it has a killer feature: it can swap between a full colour display, and a black-and-white reading mode to replicate the use case of an e-reader. Think of an iPad and a Kindle being fused together, and you’ve got the picture.
The specs are impressive too, with the 14-inch 2.8K display offering great potential for watching movies, while the MediaTek Dimensity 8200 processor and 12GB RAM should hopefully provide a snappy performance.
Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra
Some may shudder at the idea of robots sprouting arms, but in the case of the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra robot vacuum cleaner, this can only be good news. The new dust sucker features a FlexiArm Design Side Brush, with the robotic arm able to push the brush right in the corners of your home to sweep away the dirt.
Other exciting features include a forward-facing camera for automatic object avoidance, an improved mopping performance and a built-in voice assistant so you can shout out cleaning requests directly to your robot cleaner.
Panasonic Z95A
The Panasonic Z95A is a fascinating TV, as it’s powered by Amazon’s Fire TV operating system and therefore has full Alexa integration, making it easier to navigate your TV as well as control your smart home without leaving the sofa. The Fire TV Ambient Experience also allows your TV to switch to a smart display when not in use, presenting personal photos, beautiful art or even your own calendar.
It’s not just the software that’s impressive about the Panasonic Z95A though, as it’s among the first 4K OLED televisions to support a speedy 144Hz refresh rate, making it an ideal option for gamers.
Garmin Lily 2
It wasn’t too long ago when someone would laugh if you ever called a sports watch ‘fashionable’, but the Garmin Lily 2 proves that times have changed with this elegant design. Despite its sleek form, the Lily 2 is bursting with features including 18 sports apps, and the new sleep score feature that evaluates the quality of your slumber.
All of the key smartwatch features are here too, including contactless payments, a heart rate sensor, step tracker and the ability to leverage the GPS of your smartphone. What’s more, Garmin claims the Lily 2 can last up to 5 days on a single charge when set to smartwatch mode.
Victrola Stream Sapphire
Turntables have become the trendy must-have gadget for music fans in the past few years, so it’s great to see the Victrola Stream Sapphire taking the spotlight at CES 2024. This is a new stylish turnable that’s capable of streaming music to a variety of devices from Sonos speakers to Bluetooth music players and smartphones.
Thanks to support for 24-bit / 48kHz lossless FLAC audio it’s capable of delivering high quality audio that should please the strictest audiophiles. And to top it off, it looks absolutely gorgeous with a wooden plinth and carbon fibre tonearm.
Nanoleaf Essentials Outdoor String Lights
Indoor smart lights are all well and good, but they can’t be used to show off to the neighbours unless they come peeking through your window. The Nanoleaf Essentials Outdoor String Lights are the very first smart lights from Nanoleaf that allow you to drape the exterior of your home in glow-up LEDs.
Nanoleaf has confirmed that the new smart lights are Matter compatible, allowing you to control them with the vast majority of voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. The lights can sync up with other Nanoleaf products too, so you can have both your indoor and outdoor lights glowing in unison.
Hisense 110UX
The Hisense 110UX was undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching televisions of CES 2024. This gargantuan 110-inch screen sees a peak brightness of 10,000 nits of brightness, which is made possible thanks to ULED screen technology.
This eye-catching TV also sports 40,000 dimming zones, a chip to help boost AI performance (such as upscaling) and 95% coverage of the BT.2020 colour space. So if you’ve got enough space in your living room, the Hisense 110UX looks to be an exciting option in 2024.
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid
The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid is an unusual laptop in that it has two processors and two operating systems. By default, it’s a conventional clamshell laptop powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 chip and running on Windows 11. But pull the screen off the base, and it will swap over to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and an Android operating system.
This makes the Lenovo one of the most compelling 2-in-1 laptops yet, with a fully fledged tablet experience rather than one compromised by performance and usability. So if you’re looking for a device that can fulfil both your laptop and tablet needs, this may be your best bet in 2024.
Xreal Air 2 Ultra
The Xreal Air 2 Ultra may look like a normal pair of sunglasses at first glance, but they’re actually capable of some AR wizardry. Not only do the glasses augment virtual menus and objects into your real-world surroundings, but the two cameras on the front also enable hand tracking, making it easier for you to interact with them.
You can also use the Xreal Air 2 Ultra as an external display for the likes of your smartphone, laptop or handheld gaming device. The Micro OLED technology also ensures a top-grade image quality, making them an ideal option for watching films wherever you fancy.