CES kicks off this week from Las Vegas, and PCMag will be there, wandering the floor, throwing some elbows for prime seats at press conferences, and getting you a hands-on look at all the tech that will be making waves in 2017. Here's what we expect to see.
Phones, Carriers, and Mobile Chipsets
AT&T and T-Mobile both have major press conferences at CES. AT&T's presser is usually about connected devices and the Internet of Things rather than phones, but expect some details on 5G, as well. T-Mobile says it's having an UnCarrier announcement, which usually means some big service plan improvement.
On the chipset side, the big news will undoubtably be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, the mysterious 10-nanometer processor that will be in many flagship phones next year. Qualcomm has a press conference, a keynote, and a drinks event, so clearly, it has a lot to say. Mediatek will probably focus on cars, while Intel and Nvidia have said they're going to talk about cars, AI, VR, and 5G. None of those other companies are anticipated to announce a discrete chip with the impact on the phone world that the Snapdragon 835 will have.
None of the biggest US phone makers have major announcements scheduled for CES. LG will probably do its G6 at Mobile World Congress in late February, although it may have some midrange devices at CES. HTC has an announcement scheduled for Jan. 12, after the show, and it looks like the Samsung Galaxy S8 is now scheduled for April. We haven't heard a peep from Motorola, and Apple is never at CES. If it does an update for iPhone SE, it'll probably be in March.
That leaves the phone portion of CES, as before, mostly to Chinese and Taiwanese vendors with smaller roles in the US market. We expect the Asus Zenfone AR, the second phone with Google's Tango AR technology, to appear at CES. Honor will probably have an update to last year's low-cost Honor 5X. ZTE will offer an update on its CSX crowd-sourced, sticky, eye-tracking phone. Alcatel may have something, too.
Cars
People always say CES is about big TVs—and it is—but over the years CES has become a key event for the automotive industry. Every major auto vendor attends to show and although they don't always debut new models, they almost always launch new technologies and services. This year will be no different. It isn't confirmed, but there are rumors that Chrysler will reveal an all-electric version of its Pacifica minivan, a separate, self-driving version of which (below) is already racking up mileage with Waymo (from Google parent company Alphabet).
While most vendors are busy automating their vehicles, Honda is busy emoting. Honda will show off the NeuV, a car that includes an artificial intelligence engine that can generate emotions. (Skeptics credit Volkswagen's Herbie the Love Bug as the real pioneer in this space.) How this will enhance the mobile experience remains to be seen.
BMW will show off its next generation in-vehicle control system, HoloActive Touch. As the name suggests, it offers a mix of heads-up display, augmented reality, and plain old touch screens with haptic feedback to navigate the in-vehicle interface.
Last year, Faraday Future made a splash with the FFZERO1 all-electric supercar, but that prototype was never meant to be commercially available. This year, Faraday plans to show a vehicle that you might be able actually to buy. The big questions remain: What? When? And how much? (Telsa isn't scared yet.)
Cameras and Drones
CES is always hit or miss for camera announcements. Some years, we get a few entry-level models that do nothing to excite photography enthusiasts. Last year, Nikon decided to go big and drop two pro SLRs, the D5 and D500 at the show.
What we do know is that Fujifilm, which has had a presence on the show floor in past years, won't be at the show this year. Olympus, which hasn't shown at CES in some time, isn't holding on-site meetings with press, as it has in the past. And, like last year, Sigma is skipping the show.
I'd expect to see some modest announcements from the usual suspects—Canon, Nikon, and Sony—but nothing major. Panasonic showed off a prototype of its forthcoming GH5{{/
For fans of aerial videography and photography, the major drone manufacturers—DJI, Parrot, and Yuneec—announced new products at previous shows. I'd expect them to have something new at CES, though with DJI, which also makes handheld gimbals, it might not be something that flies.
TVs
4K is here to stay, and that means an incredibly shrinking market of 1080p HDTVs. Major TV manufacturers will all but completely phase out HDTVs in favor of 4K models even for the budget tiers, and high dynamic range (HDR) will stand as the premium feature to make more expensive TVs appealing. Don't expect to see many record-breaking huge TVs at the show, but bigger will become the norm. Sixty-five inches stands as the current standard for large TVs, but 70- and 75-inch models will start to come down in price enough for them to be feasible for users looking for really large TVs without spending five digits.
Audio
Totally wireless earphones have boomed in the last year with the Bragi Dash, Samsung Gear IconX, and Apple AirPods. Now this new headphone form factor will get polished and more widely adopted. Expect many more completely wire-free earphones to show up at CES, and don't be surprised if Bragi, Samsung, or SOL Republic hint at improved second-generation versions of their own models.
PCs
It looks like gaming will be the word on everyone's lips in the PC market, driven by Nvidia's amazing new Pascal graphics line and Intel's evolutionary Kaby Lake processors. These components are allowing for more power than ever in increasingly streamlined laptops, and manufacturers are itching to make the most of the hardware.
More gaming power also goes hand in hand with virtual reality, and now that the main VR headsets are on the market, the biggest companies are eager to roll out systems that cater to early adopters and fence sitters. General Windows 10 headsets are on the way, too, which should mean gaming-grade components will come to a wider swath of systems than before.
Outside of power-focused systems, expect the multi-function revolution to continue; 2-in-1 design is spreading to every other PC category, from business systems to ultraportables. Laptops will get thinner, continue to adopt USB-C (some leaving traditional USB behind altogether), and attain ever-longer battery life thanks to the new processors. Expect updates to award-winning lines from the likes of Dell, Lenovo, and Acer.
Virtual Reality
VR has come with less than an explosion but more than a flash in the pan. All of the major virtual reality players we've been waiting for (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream) have arrived, and now we need to see if they keep improving hardware and software offerings to make the market feasible. Meanwhile, Microsoft is working with several manufacturers for its own ecosystem of Windows 10 VR headsets, and we could see the first looks at actual models at the show. As for non-VR gaming, CES isn't a big show for it. Don't expect any news on the Nintendo Switch, but the week after CES Nintendo itself will be holding a major preview event.
Wearables and Fitness Gadgets
It's been a rough year for wearables and fitness trackers. Ahead of CES, the big elephant in the room is how companies plan to reverse the downward trend and bolster their fortunes. Whether it's diving deeper with personal training software, more specific tracking (e.g., exactly how many burpees can you do in a minute?), or sleeker fashion options, look for companies to try distinguishing themselves from their competition.
Speaking of which, Hug Innovations is set to show off the world's first gesture-control smartwatch, while Under Armor will deliver a keynote about its vision of "connected fitness." Just don't expect Fitbit to be anything but mum on its recent Pebble acquisition.
Smart Home
Between Alexa and Mark Zuckerberg's new buddy Jarvis, the smart home is looking a lot less futuristic. In 2016 we saw a focus on home security, so it's no surprise that this year brings even more smart alarm systems, video doorbells, and security cameras. But the biggest challenge remains making the Internet of Things devices talk to each other seamlessly across platforms. To that end, keep an eye out for companies showing off their solutions of how to integrate all these connected devices into a more intuitive user experience. And of course, there's always the oddball "smart" gizmo like toothbrushes, umbrellas, and even mattresses.