Ever since 1967 when the Consumer Electronics Show was born, the world of consumer electronics has changed markedly. Smartphones have replaced everything from personal music players and point-and-shoot cameras to answering machines and digital voice recorders. The huge desktop PCs have vanished in thin air. And the thick giant speakers, and 200-kilogram 36-inch CRT TVs of yesteryear are long gone.
Despite all that, there’s plenty of cool stuff you should be excited about this year—this brings us to this story. The following are the best products showcased at the CES 2015;
The Best Phone: LG G Flex 2
What LG did was get its last year’s flexing phone and shrinked its screen to 5.5 inches making it a lot brighter and sharper. The G Flex 2, will be sold by Sprint having a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip, the strongest Smartphone processor on the market
The Best Phone Accessory: Lenovo Vibe Xtension Selfie Flash
Selfies being the trend all over digital media, Lenovo came up with a ring of LEDs that is injected into the Smartphone to give enough light to prevent blurry photos. This comes in after numerous reports that selfies in the dark are a total disaster
The Best Smartwatch: Lenovo Vibe Band VB10
Addressing the main complaints with the smart watches available on the market, The Lenovo Vibe Band VB10 comes with extended battery life with a significantly reduced price; $89. Having a 1.43-inch E Ink display, this means it can last for up to a week on a single charge other smartwatches going for only a single day. It has also special features thrown into it like counting steps and calories, distance travelled and quality of your sleep. The Vibe also brings more moves to the dance floor like notifications from your phone.
The Best Fitness Gadget: Garmin Vivoactive
Garmin being for long the first name in sport watches, it is now moving into smartwatches as well with its revolutionary sports-smart device Garmin Vivoactive. Keeping in mind the competition from Samsung and Apple, its remarkably thin smartwatch is GPS-enabled including a fleet of apps to track sports activities from swimming to golfing. The bad news is that it does not have an inbuilt heart rate monitor but the good news is that you can attach a chest strap and pair it via Bluetooth. That’s too much gadgetry for the athlete, right? It will be compatible with Android and iOS devices for smart notifications, going for $249.
The Best Health Gadget: TempTraq
A thermometer for babies in the form of an adhesive bandage. This is placed under the baby’s arm; the patch is a Bluetooth-connected sensor that tracks your baby’s temperature continuously, with alerts sent via Smartphone. TempTraq is a simple, but highly valuable device with a clear purpose to parents could help them become more comfortable with the idea of remote and real-time health monitoring. This is a game-changer on a psychological and societal level for better healthcare. The companion app for the new TempTraq patches shows both current temperature and historic records, letting parents and doctors spot changes, too.
The Best Digital Home Gadget: LG Twin Wash
the Twin Wash washing machine from LG is simply washing machine within a washing machine. It sounds confusing, but it actually makes perfect sense. It has space for a full-size load on top, and a smaller, pullout drawer on the bottom that allows you to wash a second load simultaneously. The mini washer is perfect for delicate items that require extra care or special wash settings. This saves time since you can simultaneously wash more than one batch of laundry.
The Best Android Tablet: Dell Venue 8 7000
All the Android tablets on the market are aimed at value market hence being cheaply constructed which isn’t the case with the Venue 8 7000. It is the slimmest tablet yet, thinner than the Apple iPod 2. It is 8-inch and amazingly sharp screen. Via design, it competes with the Editors’ Choice for Android tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4.
The Best Windows Tablet: Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 8-inch Windows with AnyPen Technology
Boot up Lenovo Yoga Tablet and the familiar Windows 8.1 interface welcomes you. But that’s not all; it has a unique scratch-resistant touch screen that works with any graphite or metal point larger than 1mm. In case you need to sign a document? Just grab a mechanical pencil, pen, or even the fork on the table next to you.
The Best Hybrid Laptops: Lenovo LaVie HZ750 and HZ550
The Lenovo LaVie H750 convertible and HZ550 clamshell laptops are some of the lightest, if not the lightest 13-inch PCs that we saw at the show. They are constructed of sturdy magnesium-lithium alloys, and weigh less than some tablet-keyboard dock combos. The HZ750 is 2.04 pounds, while the HZ550 is only 1.72 pounds, a couple of ounces heavier than the original Apple iPad. The HZ750 has a convertible hinge like the one on Lenovo’s Yoga line plus an Intel Core i5 processor; it can blaze through most tasks you throw at it.
The Best Chromebook: Acer Chromebook 15
The Chromebook is a great way to get on the Internet without having to worry about buying mobile apps or downloading Windows software. The Acer Chromebook 15 extends the Chrome OS to the large-screen laptop, with an optional 15-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 full HD screen for watching HD videos on Amazon and Netflix, or vetting large spreadsheets in Google Docs. It’s really fast, with a fifth-generation Intel Core i3 or Celeron processor. If you just plain need a bigger picture and text, the base 1,366-by-768-resolution screen will let you surf the net without having to grab your reading glasses. With a $249.99 base price and the malware-resistant Chrome OS, the Acer Chromebook 15 has the potential to be that go-to laptop you buy for your non-tech savvy friends and relatives
The Best Desktop PC: HP Sprout
The HP Sprout is an immersive workstation that bursts the bounds of all-in-one computing. The Sprout combines a fully loaded TouchSmart all-in-one PC with a combination projector and scanner, plus cameras. The latter devices are contained in what HP calls the Illuminator Column, which runs up the back of the system. It bends into an arm over the display and projects an image onto a large touch-sensitive mat. It can scan documents or objects placed on the mat, the latter in either 2D or 3D, for use in animations or for printout on a 3D printer.
How awesome is that?
The Best Gaming PC: CyberPower Trinity
Lets welcome innovation in gaming PCs. In this sector, that’s where you will find the freshest technologies and ideas. The CyberPower Trinity is a manifest of this gospel truth. It has a multi-spoke design which separates the chassis into three distinct cooling zones, so it keeps components that generate heat from each other. As you’d expect, one spoke holds the CPU, ITX motherboard, and its liquid cooling system, the second holds a graphics card, while the third holds the power supply unit (PSU). In case you want to run a dual-card system, the second card rides shotgun with the PSU. The model we saw in Vegas held an Intel Core i7-4790K processor, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics card, and three 512GB SSDs. This is a rig we can’t wait to test.
The Best Gaming Gear: Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9
This is Mad Catz’s newest and most expensive gamepad which somewhat complicated mechanical marvel. It’s a dual-analog Bluetooth game transformer kinda controller that can fold up, pull apart, and reassemble to accommodate your Smartphone, tablet, and even a QWERTY mini-keyboard. It’s modular, nearly all metal, and gorgeous. It’s like building a gamepad made out of a T-800 endoskeleton.
The Best HDTV: LG 55EF9500
It’s simply a flat, 4K television with a cutting-edge panel technology we know can produce the best possible contrast and extremely accurate colours. Quantum dots could be an impressive new HDTV technology. LG is now expanding its OLED selection to 4K, with flat options. Curved screens remain a gimmick, and we can’t trust quantum dot technology until we put it through its paces. This beast will likely cost a bit more than the curved 1080p 55EC9300 (which now retails for $3,500, half as m
The Best Home Theatre Gear: Sling TV
Screaming media is the final thing that id here to destroy standard cable and satellite television. Sling TV offers live television at Netflix and Hulu prices, augmenting the on-demand and day-after libraries of the other two services with feeds of channels like ESPN, TBS, and Cartoon Network on any connected device. It’s a handful of channels for $20 per month
The Best Display/VR Gadget: HP Zvr
HP guys have added a 3D virtual reality screen to its display line-up. This HP Zvr is 23.6-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 TN LCD with a bezel that’s studded with IR projectors and cameras that track a pair of 3D glasses, so the screen will display a 3D image. A wired stylus lets you manipulate objects or change camera views. When you move your head, and the image including depth of field and focus, will change in real time. This requires workstation-class graphics card (AMD FirePro or Nvidia Quadro) in your PC and 3D imaging software. The Zvr’s interface is the closest thing to an interactive hologram we’ve seen
The Best Storage Device: Samsung Portable SSD T1
Samsung is releasing an external SSD hard drive which is smaller than most smartphones. The Samsung Portable SSD T1 measures 2 by 2.8 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs less than an 28.34grams, coming in capacities of 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB, with prices ranging from $179 to $599. The drive is based on Samsung’s 850 Evo line of laptop drives, which use 3D V-NAND flash memory to offer a smaller overall size. It supports USB 3.0, with transfer rates of up to 450MBps, as well as optional AES 256-bit encryption. It’s a featherweight and tiny yet high-performance pocket drive.
The Best Printer: XYZprinting da Vinci Junior
XYZprinting’s da Vinci Junior is a consumer-level 3D printer expected to list at just $349, come this May. Built for ease of use and with a calibration-free design, the da Vinci Junior’s build platform requires no levelling. Its auto-loading filament cartridges are easy to replace. An SD card slot allows users to print directly from an SD card, with no computer is required, making the da Vinci Junior a good choice as a shared printer in schools, libraries, or community centers. We expect to see a lot of households making the plunge into 3D printing with the da Vinci Junior.
The Best Drone: DJI Inspire 1
The 4K Inspire 1 drone from DJI isn’t a brand new product—it was announced back in mid-November—but units are just starting to ship and for many, CES is the first opportunity to see one in person. Think of the Inspire 1 as the more serious version of the hobbyist-friendly Phantom 2 Vision+. It’s got better video capability recording 24fps video at up to 4K quality, and can do up to 60fps at 1080p at up to a 60Mbps bitrate. Its 20mm wide-angle camera lens doesn’t show any fish-eye distortion. It supports dual remote controls, so one person can fly the drone and other can operate the detachable camera. All of this adds up to a quadcopter that’s appeals to serious hobbyists and independent filmmakers alike. It’s not an impulse purchase—it costs $2,899 with a single remote control and $3,399 with two remotes—but it’s easily the best consumer drone on display at CES 2015.
The Best Digital Camera: DJI Inspire 1 Camera Mount
It’s not an actual camera per se, but it’s a winner nonetheless. DJI has been a leader in stabilized video when working with aerial capture platforms like its Phantom 2 Vision+, and also offers a handheld gimbal system, the Ronin, that’s big and bad enough to handle a 6K Red cinema camera. The svelte Inspire 1 Camera Mount only works with the 4K video camera utilized by the Inspire 1, but should be a hit with documentary filmmakers who prefer a run-and-gun cinema verité style, and drone owners who would like to benefit from the same smooth video capture that they get in the air when they’re on the ground. The Camera Mount has two modes: one keeps the camera steadily locked on a position, great for a set shot, and another that allows freeform movement so you can follow moving action.
The Best Car: Mercedes F 015 “Luxury in Motion” Concept
Okay, so it’s not a car you’ll be able to buy just yet. This car right from a science fiction movie; the stunning, self-driving Mercedes F 015 drove itself on stage at CES, and looked dazzling with its silver “car of the future” exterior, sophisticated lighting, and white leather interior. The F 015 can project a crosswalk in front of the car, letting pedestrians know it’s safe to cross. Anyone in the interior can control the car with a portable module, while the dashboard is one giant screen. Safety and automated features abound. If this is what driving in traffic in 2030 looks like, sign us up.
