Innovation for the Future: CES 2022 in Review

One of the biggest global tech events, CES – Consumer Electronics Show, is held every year in January. A lot of well-established brands from the industry launch their new products and showcase their innovations done in consumer tech. The CES 2022 was held in Las Vegas from 5th-7th January 2022 and over 40,000 people across 119 countries attended this event. There were hundreds of innovative products showcased in this exhibition. Aniket Pande from BlazeTechnica lists some of the new launches and innovations are done by the most popular brands from this tech and automobile industry.

Samsung Flex Display Technology 

Samsung has always been the leader when it comes to manufacturing High-Quality OLED displays which are not just used in their smartphones but also used by various other brands including Apple for their iPhone. Foldable smartphones are the new trend and Samsung has been working on this foldable display technology for the last couple of years and is already selling some great foldable smartphones like the Galaxy Z Fold and the Z Flip series. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

CES 2022 saw Samsung showcase four new foldable display technologies Flex S, Flex G, Flex Slidable and the Flex Note. Flex S uses a Hybrid fold design with an inner and outer fold which can fit a huge display in a compact form factor.  

Source: Samsung Displays 

Flex G offers a double inner fold that hides the whole display when not in use and protects the display from accidental drops and scratches.

Flex Slidable uses a similar approach found in OPPO X 2021 which had a rollable display. The display rolls out and expands itself to give a much larger screen real estate.

Lastly, there’s the Flex Note which will be mainly used for foldable displays in laptops. A 17-inch screen can be folded and used as a 13-inch laptop eliminating the need for a physical keyboard.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED

Source: Asus

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold uses the Samsung’s Flex Note display technology and comes with a 17-inch Foldable OLED Display – which can be folded and used as a 12.5-inch laptop – and a physical keyboard attachment can be added separately. Asus claims that the hinge of the laptop is tested 30,000 times to ensure that the durability shouldn’t be a concern. Display resolution is 2560 x 1920 and it can go up to a peak brightness of 500 nits. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

Powering this laptop is the 12^th Gen Intel Core i7 1250U processor paired with Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 1 TB of M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. The laptop will be available for sale in Q2 2022 and the pricing is yet to be revealed.

Google’s vision to make the Android experience even better 

Source: Google

Apple is well known for its ecosystem of devices which offers seamless connectivity across all the devices. Google is now planning to implement something similar to offer a much better experience to its users and for this, they are launching Fast Pair for Android. This will be supported on more devices, including Windows, and will let a user instantly pair their headphones, speakers or any other wearable to a Windows PC or laptop with a single click which supports Fast Pair. Similarly, the Fast Pair will also let a user instantly pair these devices to a TV that runs on Android OS. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

Android smartphones connected with Windows laptops through Fast Pair will allow users to sync text messages and quickly transfer files from phone to laptop just like Apple’s Airdrop. HP and Acer will be among the first to adopt this Fast Pair in their upcoming Windows laptops.

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G

After a lot of delays, Samsung finally launched the Galaxy S21 FE 5G at CES 2022. The smartphone comes with a 6.4-inch Quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED Display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The variant sold in India is powered by the same Exynos 2100 processor which was used in the flagship Galaxy S21 series as well. Cameras on Galaxy S21 FE are similar to its predecessor Galaxy S20 FE, where the main camera is 12 MP with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), the second camera is 12 MP Ultrawide and the third camera is an 8 MP telephoto which offers 3x optical zoom, while the front camera is 32 MP. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

The smartphone boasts a battery capacity of 4500 mAh along with support for 25W fast charging and 15W wireless charging. The price of Galaxy S21 FE 5G starts at Rs 54,999.

OnePlus 10 Pro

After a lot of leaks and rumours, OnePlus unveiled the OnePlus 10 Pro at CES. The smartphone comes with a 6.7 inches Quad HD+ AMOLED Display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It is powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. OnePlus is continuing its partnership with Hasselblad for camera optics where the main camera is a 48 MP IMX789 sensor, the second camera is 50 MP Ultrawide and the third camera is an 8 MP telephoto, while the front camera is 32 MP. Battery capacity is 5000 mAh along with support for 80W Super VOOC fast charging and 50W wireless charging. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

Currently, the smartphone is officially launched only in China but it will be launched globally in the coming months. Chinese pricing for the base 8+128GB variant is CNY 4,699 which converts to Rs 54,500 but we will get to know the exact price once this smartphone is officially launched in India.

BMW iX Flow

Source: BMW

At CES 2022, BMW showcased their concept car iX Flow which grabbed a lot of attention. The car can change colour from black to white at the touch of a button. It may sound magical but what is truly fascinating is how the technology used here is the same one used in the Amazon kindle display. The entire car is wrapped with an E-Ink display sheet and when an electric charge is applied, the wrap switches the colours depending on the charge – whether it is positive or negative. The changing of colour from black to white might help a lot during summers due to less heat absorption. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

For all the excitability this concept has generated, it’s important to remember that this is still a concept car and not something anyone can buy at this moment.

Mercedes Vision EQXX

Source: Mercedes

On the other end of the car spectrum lies the brand Mercedes and their latest tech innovation. Mercedes unveiled its concept electric car Vision EQXX at CES and they claim that the car can offer a range of 1000 km on a single charge which is less than 10 kWh of energy per 100 km. 

CES SPOTLIGHT

EQXX is indeed a realistic concept car that will be going into mass production soon.