So the Consumer Electronics Show is over for another year, and for those who’ve been in Las Vegas covering it for us, it’s back to normality. While we allow the Cult of Mac team to sober up, it’s time to look back at the best gizmos CES had to offer. There were thousands of products on show — far too many to cover in one week — but there were a handful that really stood out.
We’ve put together a list of awesome things that we were blown away by, including smartphones, accessories, gadgets, and more. Check it out and tell us what you’re most looking forward to getting your hands on in 2013.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re always a bit stumped at how PhoneSuit is able to stuff so much battery in to their batteries. Their new Flex line is another great example; those little battery logs above each contain 2600 mAh of juice, which is more than any iPhone battery case I can think of. And that’s not even the coolest thing about them.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re a big fan of wireless Bluetooth speakers like the Jambox, but let’s face it: for most people, they are both too expensive, and too much of a pain in the butt to remember to pair and unpair. When NFC sees broad adoption, the latter will change, and you’ll be able to play from a wireless speaker just by laying it on top of the device.
Why wait for NFC, though? RCA of all companies is here at CES with a super cool new speaker line called the Soundflow, and it can play music from any smartphone or tablet just by laying it on top of the speaker. Best of all? The technology is so cheap that for the price of one Jambox, you could buy five or six Soundflows.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Our own Charie Sorrel wasn’t a huge fan of the BodyMedia Fit Link activity tracker when he reviewed it a few months back; negatives ranged from a user-unfriendly app interface and just the overall gawkiness of the device itself. BodyMedia has listened, and addressed at least one of those issues with a smaller, sleeker version of the Core called the Core 2 — and it’ll even allow you to pop the four-sensor device into elegant jewelry designed to accept the, well, core of the gadget.
Just look at that picture. Smartphone vendors are finally make Android handsets beautiful. This is the Grand S, the latest flagship smartphone from Chinese gadget maker ZTE, and it’s the world’s thinnest smartphone to offer a full high-definition, 1080p display. It also packs a quad-core processor, and a 13-megapixel camera.
T-Mobile USA will finally start selling the iPhone and enforce its plan to eliminate subsidies in “three to four months,” according to the company’s chief executive, John Legere. It will be the first time T-Mobile has offered in the iPhone in the United States since the handset was first released launched in 2007.
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show has already seen the unveiling of several impressive Android handsets, including the Sony Xperia Z, the Huawei Ascend D2, and the Pantech Discover. But we haven’t quite seen them all yet. Lenovo just announced a new smartphone of its own, and it’s quite a looker. Equipped with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, the K900 is yet another “phablet,” but unlike the rest, this one’s equipped with an Intel Atom processor.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – It’s pretty unusual to see a major headset manufacturer’s brand-spanking new flagship phone soaking in a goldfish bowl. Then again, if that phone is the new waterproof Sony Xperia Z, maybe a fishbowl is exactly where one would expect to find it.
Following the announcement of its budget smartphone lineup at CES on Monday, Alcatel has today unveiled the flagship device in its new One Touch family. It’s called the One Touch Scribe X, and in addition to its 1080p display, it offers a quad-core processor, and a 12-megapixel camera.
During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, ZTE announced a brand new partnership with Nuance that will bring the company’s famous voice recognition software to ZTE’s upcoming smartphone family. The first devices to offer voice interaction will be launching this year, with support for more than 25 different languages and a new “Car Mode” app designed for use behind the wheel.
