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The Most Important Gadgets That You'll See At CES This Year
The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest event in tech of the year, starts next week in Las Vegas.
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And a lot of companies aren't wasting time teasing or even pre-announcing what they'll be showing off throughout the week.
We'll be covering the event live throughout the week, but to get you excited we filtered through all the leaks, rumors, and announcements to give you a taste of the most important gadgets you can expect to see.
Samsung is not keeping its plans for TV a secret. The company has teased its new web-connected TVs several times over the last few weeks, showing a brand new interface for managing your content.
We don't know all the details yet, but expect Samsung's new Smart TV to be the focus of its big keynote presentation before CES kicks off.
Google is going to make another big push with its Google TV product this year, starting at CES. The company has already announced hardware partners like LG, Asus, Hisense, Vizio, and more.
The products will be a mix of set-top boxes and full television sets with Google TV built in.
It's tough to imagine how picture quality can get any better, but high-end manufacturers like Samsung and Sony have plans to show off new 4K TVs at CES.
These TVs have 4,000 pixels (horizontally), resulting in the clearest picture standard available today. We saw a few 4K TVs at CES last year, but since everyone is making such a big push in the living room in 2013, expect to see many more.
There's been a lot of talk recently about Samsung making a phone with an unbreakable display in 2013. While you'll likely have to wait several more months for that, the company is expected to show off a prototype of its bendable display at its CES booth.
Intel is best known for making processors for regular desktop and laptop computers, but it has struggled with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. That's because most smartphone and tablet makers like to use ARM processors, which are usually just as powerful but use less battery.
Intel will supposedly make a bigger push in mobile this year, so we're expecting the company to talk a bit about its latest mobile chips. After that, the challenge will be to convince manufacturers to actually use them.
Since Windows 8 has a touch-based interface, manufacturers are coming up with a bunch of clever designs that take advantage. There are regular laptops with touchscreens. Tablets that dock with a keyboard to become a laptop. And some "convertibles" that flip into a laptop or regular tablet.
As manufacturers continue to experiment with Windows 8, we're expecting to see some fresh hardware designs and concepts at CES.
The so-called phablet trend just won't die. As absurd as phones with giant screens may seem, there is a market for them. Samsung proved that with the Galaxy Note last year and it seems like the competition is giving it a go too.
We're already seeing leaks of giant phones from Huawei and Sony. Expect to see similar devices from the rest of the big-name manufacturers.
Last year HTC introduced the Droid DNA, the first mobile device that can play full 1080p HD video on its screen.
As the next round of smartphones and tablets launch this year, expect most of the top-tier devices to have the same ability. In fact, we've already heard rumors that Sony and LG will introduce new phones that can show 1080p HD video.
Toward the end of last year, we started seeing more smartphones like Nokia's Lumia 920 that can charge wirelessly by placing them on a special charging pad.
There are a handful of new phones launching at CES, and we expect wireless charging to become the new standard in just about every major one moving forward this year.
This is one of those pie-in-the-sky concepts we see every year at CES.
Examples of the connected home, or a home where all your appliances, lights, alarm system, etc. are connected to and controlled via the web, will be another big theme at the show this year.
There are a handful of companies like Google and Electric Imp trying to make this a reality, but so far none have truly cracked it.
We all know Google has been developing a self-driving car for a few years now, but Toyota and Audi surprised everyone by saying they'll have their own take on the concept on display at CES.
No one knows what the cars will look like or how they'll work, but we can't wait to check it out.
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