I’m a little late to the CES 2022 buzz and this is intentional. Such events are usually full of hyperbole that takes time to die down; a couple of months at the most. This time however I was really impressed by the Las Vegas event and I will do what I have never done before, join in the CES frenzy.

That said, I don’t want to go all-in on the hyperbole, rather I want to give a measured assessment of the gadgets that I think really have a chance in the market.

Here is my list:

TVs AT CES

Although TVs did not exactly steal the show at the CES 2022 there were quite a few manufacturers who made announcements throughout the week.

The first was Samsung announced a bunch of new QLED TV models. With this new series, Samsung has redesigned the New Home Screen UI which comes surprisingly with an NFT store and the ability to hit frequencies as high as 144Hz when connected to an Nvidia 30-series GPU. They also announced a smaller lineup of MicroLED screens but the price will keep them out of people’s homes for the foreseeable future.

LG on the other hand stuck to its tried and proven plan OLED technology with its new C2 and G2 models that use the new Alpha a9 Gen 5 processor. Gamers will enjoy the C2 Series which come in 48-inch and 42-inch size.

Although Sony was one of the last manufacturers with a TV announcement, they had one of the best offerings with the only consumer-ready QD-OLED screen in the new A95K. The screen promises 200% colour saturation with better viewing angles, better black levels while also providing support for 4K/120Hz.

Other worthy mentions in this space include models from Hisense and TCL.

COMPUTING AT CES

Advances in the computing front are something we are used to at CES, there is always something new to announce in this sector.

The first mention in this space was the Concept Nyx, an Alienware gadget that is built to be a home entertainment system for PC gaming. Its powerful hardware allows it to stream multiple PC games on high settings over your home network to compatible connected devices like smart TVs, Chromebooks, tablets, and even phones. It pretty much puts the power of several high-end gaming PCs into a local server that your entire family can then stream from, which is, like, the future.

Another major innovations was the Asus ROG Flow Z13 which according to techradar was essentially taking the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook and loading it up with high-quality gaming laptop hardware to produce a bonafide PC gaming tablet. 

With up to an RTX 3050 Ti GPU and an Intel Core i9-12900H processor, this is more than powerful enough to play the latest AAA games at 1080p with respectable, if not high, settings, and it’s a product that the entire computing team is fighting over for the chance to review like a bunch of siblings at Christmas.

Also, there were more advancements with graphic cards and processors and also some new 4K gaming monitors which came with some seriously fast refresh rates.

Intel Alder Lake mobile and the new AMD 6000-series mobile processors were announced, but with Intel’s 12th gen chips supporting the faster DDR5 RAM, Intel will definitely hold onto its dominant lead in the mobile computing space. 

Nvidia, was also not left behind, announcing their flagship RTX 3090 Ti graphics card which in truth no one is going to be able to afford, at least for the foreseeable future.

PHONES AT CES

The two headline-stealing phone launches of CES were the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, a lower-cost version of the popular S21, and the OnePlus 10 Pro – though the latter was more hype-building than an actual launch.

We saw loads of budget phones too, with four Nokia mobiles and two TCL devices, including a few surprisingly low-cost 5G handsets, all of which will be on sale in the US later in the year.

The TechRadar team’s favourite new phones, though, were the Vivo V23 series – these are good-looking handsets with top selfie capabilities and are the mobiles we’ll remember most from the show.

As per usual, smartphones weren’t a huge element of CES 2022 with most of the focus being put on the world of TVs, computing products and even car tech.

WEARABLES AT CES

Wearables are getting more exciting each year and CES 2022 did not disappoint. There were a few announcements on this front at the event. The most notable were two new watches from Garmin. These are the Venu 2 Plus which allows you to take calls directly from your wrist mid-workout.

The second was the Vivomove Sport which comes with a combined digital/analog display. It has most of the same specs as its predecessor, the Vivomove 3, but at a slightly cheaper price.

Google also announced two new Google Wear OS smartwatches – the Skagen Falster Gen 6, and the Razer x Fossil Gen 6.

Elsewhere, startup Movano is challenging Oura with a new smart ring that will track all the same stats, at a lower price point. The Movano ring will monitor sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration, temperature, blood oxygen, steps, and calories – and the company hopes to add non-invasive blood glucose and blood pressure monitoring to a future model.

Overall CES 2022 was a success, despite the pandemic companies are pressing forward with innovation, creating better stuff each year.