CES 2019: Highlights and all the biggest news from Las Vegas this week

CES 2019: Highlights, updates and all the biggest news from Las Vegas this week

CES 2019: All the latest news and big product reveals from CES Las Vegas, plus key details such as the CES 2019 dates, full CES press conference schedule, and a complete look at everything unveiled by major attendees such as AMD, Nvidia, LG, Intel, Panasonic, Nvidia, Huawei, Samsung, Sony, Lenovo and many more. Everything you need to know about CES 2019 is right here, including CES highlights from the entire week, all brought to you in comprehensive fashion by our team on the ground in Nevada. 

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the biggest, glitziest and often weirdest tech show in the world. Now CES 2019 is well underway; it kicked off on Sunday January 6 ahead of the first full day of press conferences that took place on Monday January 7. The show opened to the public from Tuesday January 8 and will close on Friday January 11.

Whether you’re into TVs, laptops, gaming, VR, robotics, audio, drones, wearables, cars or smart home technology (by no means an extensive list), there’s something at CES for everyone this year – and as well as our complete guide to CES highlights and news below, you can also check out our best of CES 2019 awards roundup for a quick look at some to this year’s top new products.

Starring all of the biggest names in technology (apart from Apple), CES is where companies like to show off their latest, greatest and most outrageous creations. And CES 2019 is where we’ll get our heads around the major technology trends and releases for the upcoming year.

Below follows details of what some of the biggest attendees have been up to so far at CES 2019, as we recap CES highlights from the first four days of the show and look ahead to day 5 in Vegas. Scroll down for dedicated sections on the likes of Huawei, LG, Nvidia and Samsung, or take your fill of the absolute latest CES news below.

Related: What is 8K TV?

CES 2019 Highlights – Latest news and updates live from CES in Las Vegas

Bringing CES to a close with a bang, AMD unveiled its latest GPU, the AMD Radeon 7. It’s most notable for being the world’s first 7nm graphics card, which basically means it should offer the best performance of any Radeon series chip to date, as smaller numbers are basically better in the world of chipset fabrication processes. It’s set to go on sale for $699 on February 7, with initial bundles coming with games like Devil May Cry V, The Division 2, and the Resident Evil 2 remake.

It’s clear as day that 2019 is the smartest CES ever, to the almost absurd point that even your car’s lighter port can now get itself some AI chops, courtesy of new accessories from Anker and also JBL. Both the Anker Roav Bolt and JBL Link Drive add plug-and-play Google Assistant to your car, with the former coming with two USB-A ports for charging your device, and the latter featuring noise-cancelling mics instead.

Gaming laptops have appeared thick and fast at this year’s CES, with Asus sub-brand ROG (Republic of Gamers) leading the way. Threatening to steal this year’s show is the Mothership (pictured below), a frankly monstrous 17.3-inch machine that’s described by Computing Editor Tom Newton as “a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 crossed with a Challenger 2 battle tank” in his Asus ROG Mothership review.

Less obscene to ogle but equally intriguing is the Zephyrus S, which packs an Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU into an impressive lightweight design that could appeal to creatives just as much as it does to PC gamers – read our Asus ROG Zephyrus S review to learn more.

CES is known for featuring the latest and greatest AV products, and leading manufacturer Audio-Technica caught our attention this year with a couple of big reveals. On the headphone front, the company announced new flagship on-ear cans in the form of the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC900BT, which were joined by a couple of more affordable models to complete a three-strong CES reveal. And budding DJs have a new turntable to consider in the entry-level Audio-Technica LP60X, which promises a “smoother sound” from just £99.

It might be an idea to brush up on your UK drone laws first, what with a fresh fiasco now engulfing Heathrow, but those of you who do know how to safely fly a drone will be pleased to hear that DJI has unveiled a new accessory for its excellent Mavic 2 drones at CES. The DJI Smart Controller does what it says on the tin, featuring a 5.5-inch Full HD touchscreen that can hit up to 1000 nits of brightness and an Android-based OS for ease of use, making it the ideal companion for all your LEGAL drone flying exploits.

Thought things couldn’t get any easier when it comes to robot vacs? Ecovacs wants you to think again. The company’s all-new Deebot Ozmo 960 offers all the usual functionality you’ll find in the best robot vacuums on the market, but adds some additional AI smarts in the form of a camera and software that allows the vac to spot potentially troublesome items, and then work out whether to clean them up or not. As anyone who’s ever had to ferret pine needles out of their vacuum after Christmas will tell you, this kind of feature could help install domestic bliss in households near and far.

Body hacking isn’t just for psychopaths these days, and one new wearable that particularly intrigues us was on display at CES 2019 courtesy of Embr. It’s called the Embr Wave and is designed to change your body temperature in a non-invasive way. The device generates a small amount of either hot or cold, depending on how you set it, with the company likening the effect to holding an ice cube or touching a warm drink.

Distributing the temperature in waves, the firm’s research has shown that using an Embr Wave for just three minutes can make you feel a temperature change of up to 5-degrees Fahrenheit. We can’t necessarily say it’s the most stylish wearable we’ve ever seen, but if it stops us arguing with friends and family about whether it’s too hot (or cold) all the bloody time, we’d happily strap on this chunky slice of domestic bliss.

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The slightly bonkers Google CES playground has got plenty of people talking in Vegas, but it hasn’t been all fun and games from the search giant. The company has teamed up with Lenovo to launch the Lenovo Smart Clock – a cute, miniature version of the Google Home Hub that’s much more than just an alarm clock. It can charge your phone, play music either through connected devices or Bluetooth and, of course, converse with you thanks to Google Assistant and the newly demonstrated Google Interpreter mode we saw in action as Caesar’s.

Lenovo has kept us busy elsewhere, too, revealing the stunning new Yoga S940 laptop – a 27-inch Yoga A940 all-in-one desktop PC (pictured below) – and Alexa-enabled tablets such as the Smart Tab P10 that turns into a smart display by slotting into a speaker dock. There are also new Lenovo Legion gaming laptops to take in, which have been updated with some of the latest Nvidia RTX components to offer even more bang for your buck, and a new 2-in-1 in the Lenovo Yoga C730.

Most impressive of all, though, might be the Lenovo Z5 Pro smartphone, which packs some of the beefiest specs we’ve ever seen in a Snapdragon 855 SoC, 12GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Could the 2019 Android war already have been won?

Building on a breakthrough 2018, Hisense is back with a bang at CES this year with a host of new products. There’s new high-end 4K models complete with HDR, of course, and updates on the firm’s Roku OS sets. Probably most exciting, however, is the new Hisense 100L7T Smart TriChroma 4K Laser TV, which aims to build on the firm’s efforts last year to bring an even more tempting slice of cinema tech into your home.

Significant phone reveals have been few and far between at CES this year, which means that Huawei sub-brand Honor is enjoying its fair share of the limelight. Its latest offering, the Honor View 20, gives us a glimpse of what’s to come in the Android flagship world in 2019, featuring a teeny hole-punch cutout on the front of the display in place of the unsightly notches seen throughout 2018. Set to be priced affordably and launch in Europe later in January, you can check out our Honor View 20 review to learn more.

Over in the HP camp, we’re intrigued by the potential of the HP Omen X Emperium to act as both a huge gaming monitor and a 4K TV. That’s because, as well as giving you a 65-inch display, 144Hz refresh rate, and Nvidia G-Sync HDR, it also comes with an integrated HP Omen X Emperium soundbar and Nvidia Shield – the latter of which gives you a host of on-demand streaming apps including Netflix, Amazon Video, and YouTube. That means we can see it comfortably acting as a TV replacement for some gamers, which is good news given its enthusiastic asking price of around £4000-4500.

Cameras have had a large presence at this year’s CES, and few have tickled our early fancy as much as the new Titan from Chinese outfit Insta360. The Insta360 Titan is an 11K VR camera that’s more Hollywood than home user – and with a price of over £11,000, so it should be. Still, it’s a clear step up from most of the VR cameras we’ve seen and the pro-level footage that will start to surface after its release in April sure looks like it will be fun to watch.

New year, new Intel chips to look forward to. In 2019, that means Intel Ice Lake is coming, and we saw the first demo of the company’s new 10nm processors at CES. Based on the firm’s Sunny Cove architecture, Ice Lake will see Intel’s silicon add a slew of new-gen features, including support for Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6, and something called DL Boost, or deep learning boost.

The idea, presumably, is to have devices featuring Intel Ice Lake on shelves by the end of 2019, so expect to see the first laptops destined for the European market featuring Ice Lake revealed this autumn, ahead of the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons. It might seem like an eon away now, but IFA 2019 in Berlin is one obvious launch window for shelf-ready products.

On the crowdfunding front, Matrix revealed the latest entry into its burgeoning smartwatch lineup, the PowerWatch 2. The fitness watch comes with all the usual bells and whistles – including built-in GPS, a colour LCD screen, and a heart-rate sensor – but what really separates it from its rivals it that (in theory) it needn’t ever be physically charged. A combination of thermoelectric and solar cell technology means both the user’s body heat as well as the sun can keep the watch juiced up on-the-go, and do away with the need for a daily charge. Neat.

Cars have an increasingly large presence at CES, to the point that this year we’ve seen luxe German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz use the annual Vegas showcase to unveil one of its next-generation vehicles – the Mercedes CLA 2020. The forthcoming coupe will feature a host of smart functionality – including the ability to use smartwatch heart-rate data to inform the car’s air conditioning, lighting and music levels – as well as typically powerhouse specs such as a 2.0-litre inline-4, 221 horsepower engine with 258lb-ft of torque. A production model is expected to be revealed in full later in the year, prior to orders going live in Q3 or Q4 2019.

Smartwatch startup Mobvoi shook things up last year with its affordable TicWatch offerings, and at CES 2019, it unveiled the latest additions to its burgeoning range of products. The TicWatch E2 and TicWatch S2 are Google Assistant-ready smartwatches that pack Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip and offer a clear alternative to pricier wearables. The new duo should be launched in the UK and US on January 22 in a wide range of colour options.

Say the word “nad” and those who recall the 90s will probably think of the crude humour favoured by Messrs Beavis and Butthead. At CES, however, NAD is the Canadian hi-fi company that just unveiled a new addition to its high-end Masters Series. The NAD Masters M10 streaming amp can serve as the focal point of your home audio setup, or work in unison with other players in a BluOS network. Whichever way you deploy one, we think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty darn stylish bit of kit.

Want to know about the seedier side of CES? Deputy News and Features Editor Aatif Sulleyman has been busy this week trolling the annual Vegas showcase’s smuttier areas and spoke to Naughty America CEO Andreas Hronopoulos about why VR porn’s biggest problem isn’t going to go away any time soon. Make of that what you will…

There’s plenty happening behind the scenes in the Qualcomm camp this CES, with the semiconductor giant following up its Snapdragon 855 reveal late last year with plenty more fighting talk about its new flagship SoC, which is ready to help usher in a new era of 5G phones.

There’s also lots of development to be seen within the firm’s automotive arm, namely that car giant Ford has committed to full adoption of 5G-ready C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) communications technology. This is something that’s underpinned by Qualcomm’s 9150 chipset and also currently being rolled out by the likes of Audi and Ducati.

Smart home technology is one of the most significant themes at this year’s CES, and Ring has made one of the biggest reveals so far in its all-new Ring Door View Cam. Fitting over the traditional peep hole, it transforms your door’s existing viewing portal into a fairly full-featured smart security cam, coming with motion detection, two-way talk, door activity detection, night vision and Full HD video. Rivalling it in the smart home security stakes at this year’s show is the Netatmo Smart Video Doorbell.

8K TVs aside, probably the most anticipated device at CES 2019 was the foldable FlexPai phone from Chinese-American outfit Royole. Unveiled in China late last year, this was the device’s international debut and it’s safe to say one that had the crowds (and journalists) pretty excited as a taste of what’s to come in 2019, when foldable phones like the long-awaited Samsung Galaxy X are finally set to come to market. Is it our first look at the future of phones or simply a foldable flop? Read our early Royole FlexPai review to find out.

Vloggers may already be able to shoot sumptuous 4K video on their smartphones, but there’s no denying the audio quality you get from handset-shot videos is more Wimpy bar than The Wolseley. That’s where Shure and its new MV88+ Video Kit comes in. The Shure MV88+ Video Kit basically turns your smartphone into a pro-calibre vlogging setup – or at least, it turns some phones into a pro-calibre vlogging setup. At present, certain Android devices don’t offer enough power or the necessary USB-C compatibility, making further accessories necessary, so it’s worth checking the company’s supported device list before stumping up the spondulix you  reckon will make you a YouTube star.

British broadcaster Sky didn’t have a presence at CES per se, but it certainly made its presence felt back home with news of a new tie-up with little known outfit Synamedia surfacing at CES 2019 this week. Synamedia was in Vegas showcasing its ‘Credentials Sharing Insight’ (CSI) system, a new service that content providers − such as Sky − can use to find out if a customer’s account is being used by more people than it’s supposed to be. As we reveal, this could mean Sky’s piracy crackdown hitting scary new heights in the UK as more users being targeted than ever before.

The rumour mill recently ignited with talk of a new 2019 Sonos speaker, but that didn’t materialise at CES this year. What did happen is we got the chance to sit down with top Sonos brass Lidiane Jones, senior director of software product management, who addressed recent iPhone problems with the Sonos app. A fix is coming as a matter of importance, we were told, and you can read the full Trusted Reviews exclusive here. We also learned that Sonos Google Assistant support is finally coming in 2019 to the Sonos One, which owners of the smart speaker will no doubt be delighted to hear.

Not wanting to be left behind as the so-called “big four” TV manufacturers outed eye-popping new 8K wares, TCL came to town with a next-gen set of its own in the TCL X10 8K TV. The firm’s newest flagship utilises QLED display technology and an Android TV interface, as well as offering support for Dolby Atmos, Google Assistant, and (if you’re lucky) baked-in Roku.

In addition, it looks pretty damn snazzy, and the best bit is you can expect it to come in slightly cheaper than rival 8K sets – although its price is still likely to give most bank managers fits.

Turntables are one of the more fun ways to while away some time on the shop floor at CES, and we’re probably most excited about the latest offerings from Technics. At the more affordable end of the spectrum sits the new Technics SL-1500C, but the biggest news is unquestionably the return of one of the most iconic decks of all-time: the Technics SL-1200. This turntable has, in various forms, been a mainstay of the DJ scene since the 1970s – and in 2019, we’re getting an updated model in the Technics SL-1200MK7 (or Technics SL-1210MK7 in Europe). Safe to say, our roundup of the best turntables could be getting a new entry or two later in the year.

Back to VR again and virtual reality content curation service Viveport has announced an all-you-can-eat subscription service, Viveport Infinity. Launching later this year, it will allow you to tap into more than 1000 virtual reality experiences for a single monthly fee. On the hardware front, HTC’s Vive arm unveiled a brand-new headset, the Vive Pro Eye – and teased another in the Vive Cosmos. The Pro Eye looks familiar but promises improved eye-tracking compared to previous Vive headsets, while the Cosmos could be something of a game-changer and is designed to offer users a high-end VR experience through their phone, rather than requiring a fancy-pants gaming PC.

Leading wearable brand Withings also brought its A-game to Vegas this year in the form of its new Move ECG watch. Like the most famous ECG-capable watch, the Apple Watch Series 4, it will take an ECG reading when you place your fingers on its bezel for a short time. As such it’s useful for spotting heart conditions and sending alerts to medical professionals about the user’s health. Unlike the Apple Watch, it’s competitively priced at around £100, making it a potential breakthrough product once it goes on sale. Check out our first look Withings Move ECG review to learn more.

Related: Why the Withings Move ECG is more exciting than the Apple Watch

Dell news and highlights from CES 2019

Dell’s focus on gaming has been massive at CES 2019. The reveal of the Alienware Area-51m, the biggest of the lot, brought the world’s first fully upgradable gaming laptop – so you have the option of switching to an even meatier graphics card in the future. Not that you’ll need to anytime soon, with the RTX 2080 graphics card, 8-Core 9th Generation Intel Core i9 K-Series processor and up to 64GB of DDR4 combining for eye-watering power.

A whopping Alienware 55-inch 4K OLED monitor was shown off, too, as well the Dell G7 15, a stylish premium gaming laptop. Away from gaming, the Dell XPS 13, our Ultrabook of the year for 2018, has been lavished with a few tweaks. A new “Frost White” colour option will be making its way into stores in February, while the webcam has finally been shifted to its rightful place above the display.

Meanwhile, Dell’s upcoming commercial laptop, the Latitude 7400 2-in-1, will be the world’s first computer to use a proximity sensor enabled by Intel Context Sensing Technology. This means that the laptop will be able to detect your presence, and will lock itself when it senses that you’ve left your desk. Return to your device, and it will automatically activate facial recognition in order to log itself back in.

Huawei news from CES 2019

Huawei’s presence at CES 2019 has been minimal, and those of you hoping for a glance at the much anticipated P30 flagship smartphone will have to wait a little longer.

Instead, Huawei announced a duo of mid-range products aimed, initially at least, at the US market. The more interesting of the two is the MateBook 13: this is Huawei’s answer to the MacBook Air, with prices starting at $999.

It’s a sleek laptop with a decent keyboard, 13-inch high-res display and a large trackpad. There are two models available and it will ship in the US later in January.

The other Huawei release is the MediaPad M5 Lite. This Android tablet is aimed at families, with a few nice features for kids, including quick access to a kids mode with a tap on the fingerprint sensor. It comes with a stylus in the box, a 10.1-inch 1080p display and Android 8. It will also be shipping January for $299.

LG news and highlights from CES 2019

LG unveiled the jaw-droppingly beautiful LG Signature OLED TV R at its press conference. It’s a rollable TV that can slide in and out of view at the touch of a button. The model on show in Las Vegas is the 65R9, which features a 65-inch flexible OLED display, and it’s “coming soon”.

While there’s no word on pricing yet, we can safely assume that it will be very expensive indeed. However, the gasps that greeted its unveiling suggest there won’t be a shortage of buyers. For those after something a bit more familiar from the South Korean TV giant, the new LG C9 OLED looks a good bet to find itself in our best 4K TVs guide sooner rather than later, and the more mid-range LG E9 OLED looks like a vast improvement on its E-series predecessors.

LG also unveiled the LG HomeBrew, which is essentially a beer machine. It’s capable of brewing stout, wheat beer, pale ale, IPA and pilsner, and relies on single-use capsules that contain malt, yeast, hop oil and flavourings – another announcement that went down nicely with the Las Vegas crowd.

LG also announced a handful of new products ahead of its press conference in Las Vegas, including the 17-inch LG Gram 17, which it claims will be the lightest large display notebook on the market, two huge new UltraWide monitors − a 49-inch model with an eye-popping 5120 x 1440 resolution and 32:9 aspect ratio, and a 38-inch version with a 3840 x 1600 resolution and 21:9 aspect ratio − as well as a new laser 4K home cinema projector, the LG CineBeam 4K.

 

Nvidia news and highlights from CES 2019

The first big company out of the gates at CES this year was Nvidia, which held its press conference on Sunday January 6. The star of the show was undoubtedly the graphics card giant’s new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, with full pricing details and plenty of key specs revealed.

It’s good news for gamers, too, as things are looking ultra-affordable. The RTX 2060 is coming in at £329/$350, with Nidia’s official press release claims that it should beat the gameplay performance of the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti.

“The RTX 2060 is 60% faster on current titles than the prior-generation GTX 1060, Nvidia’s most popular GPU, and beats the gameplay of the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti,” the statement says. “With Turing’s RT Cores and Tensor Cores, it can run Battlefield V with ray tracing at 60 frames per second.”

The card features 6GB of GDDR6, 240 tensor cards, and will be available as a factory overclocked Founders Edition from January 15. Nvidia also says that third-party cards will be supported, while ray tracing technology will also feature on the cards.

Panasonic news and highlights from CES 2019

As well as treating us to new Technics turntables, Panasonic has introduced a number of new TV and camera products at CES 2019. Chief among these are the new Panasonic UB450 and UB150 Blu-ray players, which feature HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support. Keen photographers will want to keep an eye on the forthcoming  Lumix S1 and S1R full-frame cameras to be released in March, if all goes according to plan. The S1 will likely retail for around £1500-2000, while the more pro-level S1R could cost up to £3000, given the state of the market at the moment.

On the TV front, the Japanese electronics giant revealed its first new TVs on 2019, headlined by the Panasonic GZ2000 OLED. As well as being the world’s first set to support both HDR10+, Dolby Vision HDR and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma), it also boasts integrated Dolby Atmos speakers and support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, making it one of the most fully-featured TVs we’ve seen at the show.

Samsung news and highlights from CES 2019

Samsung has been busy at CES 2019, especially on the TV front. Looking ahead, we got our best look yet at the Samsung MicroLED TV (pictured below), which measures an impressive 75 inches and appears to be nearly ready to start hitting shelves. Already good-to-go is a gargantuan new 98-inch version of the hugely impressive Samsung QE85Q900R 8K TV launched last year.

We also learned that Samsung’s 2019 TVs will come with a killer new feature: an Apple iTunes app. This might sound like a modest reveal compared to a new 8K set, but considering that this is the first time iTunes will be available outside of Apple’s own hardware ecosystem – and the chequered history between the two firms – this is a big deal. Here’s where you can find out more about iTunes on Samsung TVs.

Alternatively, find our more about Samsung’s new 2019 8K TVs here – and in case you forget, there’s apparently a 5G-ready phone called the Galaxy S10 coming to a shopping centre near you this year!

Oh, and there’s a new Samsung Family Hub smart fridge for all you white goods fanciers out there. Because you can never, ever reach peak fridge.

Sony news and highlights from CES 2019

Sony’s CES 2019 press conference was a relatively subdued affair by the Japanese firm’s lofty standards, but hidden just beneath the surface was a huge TV reveal – the Japanese firm has debuted its first mainstream 8K offering in the form of the Master Series Z9G.

Comprised of two sets – one at 85 inches, and an even larger one measuring at 98 inches – the Master Series Z9G is expected to be “available soon” and includes a host of high-end features from 8K upscaling (obviously) and Google Assistant functionality, to HDMI 2.1 support and the company’s latest TV processor, the Sony Picture Processor X1 Ultimate.

Pricing is likely to be decidedly eye-watering, but if you have a sizeable living room and an even bigger bank balance, then Sony’s new 8K TVs could be just what you need to lord it over the neighbours.

Elsewhere, the company revealed the Sony PS-LX310BT turntable, a Bluetooth-enabled deck that promises to help you bring your vinyl collection into the wireless world for an affordable £200. It’s set to be released this April.

More interesting still on the audio front is the Sony LSPX-S2, a wireless speaker with a stripped-back candlestick-like design that borrows a trick from last year’s impressive Sony AF9 OLED TV; it vibrates to produce sound. Also known as the Glass Sound Speaker, we think you’ll agree it’s one of the more intriguing bits of kit to break cover at this year’s show.

CES 2019 Dates – CES press conference times and dates

The official dates for CES 2019 are January 6 to January 12 in Las Vegas. The opening CES Unveiled press conference takes place on Sunday January 6 at the Mandalay Bay from 5pm PT, which is 9am GMT and 8am CET. The event opens its doors to the public on Tuesday January 8.

The most important CES 2019 press conferences to keep an eye on are on the Sunday and Monday before the show opens to the public – so they’ve now all taken place.

For reference, you can still find them below. All times were local time (US Pacific Time).

• NVIDIA: Sunday, January 6 at 8-10pm 
• LG: Monday, January 7 at 8-8.45am
• Panasonic: Monday, January 7 at 10-10.45am
• Hisense: Monday, January 7 at 11-11.45am
• Qualcomm:Monday, January 7 at 12-12.45pm
• TCL (BlackBerry): Monday, January 7 at 12-12.45pm
• Samsung: Monday, January 7 at 2-2.45pm
• Intel: Monday January 7 at 4-4.45pm
• Sony: Monday, January 7 at 5-5.45pm

CES 2019 – The biggest trends to watch at CES Las Vegas

We’re on the ground to cover all of the biggest announcements at CES 2019, but if you want a detailed look at what’s coming this week, check out preview from before the show. Note that some information may appear outdated as the reveals start to flood in.

8K and MicroLED

TV tech always dominates CES, and we’re expecting all things 8K to reign supreme at CES 2019.

Samsung really got the 8K ball rolling in late 2018, with the release of the £15,000 Samsung QE85Q900R, and CES 2019 is where we’re expecting LG and Sony − which have only managed to showcase 8K prototypes so far − to announce their own 8K releases.

Word on the street is that Sony is prepping an 8K camera to go alongside its 8K TV product. Sounds expensive.

Fingers crossed we get a bit of positive news on the 8K content front too.

It’s also looking like LG could be about to release its stunning rollable television, which was first unveiled at CES 2018. According to reports, the 65-inch OLED will be capable of expanding out and retracting back into its shell at the touch of a button.

We’re also looking forward to hearing lots more about MicroLED TVs, which promise to combine the the high-contrast benefits of self-emissive screens with the brightness and potential colour volume of LED technology.

Flexible screens and 5G

Just when you thought the smartphone industry was getting stale, three potential game-changers emerge at the same time.

The Royole FlexPai will be on show in Vegas, and we’ll be surprised if Samsung and LG didn’t at least tease their upcoming flexible smartphone creations at CES 2019. While we’re not expecting official devices to be unveiled, we have our fingers crossed for prototypes aplenty.

2019 is also likely to be the year of the so-called “hole-punch” notch, with Samsung apparently right at the front of that particular trend. The South Korean firm hinted at the Galaxy S10’s design back in November, and we’re hoping to be treated to a few more teasers at CES.

5G is also set to be switched on in several countries around the world in 2019, so brace yourself − perhaps for the last time ever at CES − for an avalanche of 5G hype.

Ray-tracing on laptops?

Nvidia recently released its 20-series graphics cards, which let you play certain games with ray tracing, which simulates light effects in a way that makes visuals a whole lot more realistic-looking.

However, these graphics cards are currently only compatible with desktop computers. There have been murmurs that laptop versions of Nvidia’s 20-series graphics cards will be revealed at CES 2019.

Elsewhere, it could largely be a case of bigger and flasher. Maybe even curvier, too, if Lenovo acts on the jaw-dropping flexible laptop concept it unveiled in the summer.

A foldable PC? Maybe someday. Just a concept for now. #LenovoTransform pic.twitter.com/UIq1qpaSwj

— Lenovo (@lenovo) June 20, 2017

Smarter homes

Beyond the usual glut of Alexa-, Google Assistant- and Cortana-enabled devices we expect to be bombarded with at CES 2019, we envisage hearing plenty about predictive maintenance, which relies on sensors to work out when a breakdown is going to happen before it actually happens.

It might not be your idea of sexy tech, but predictive maintenance can save you a whole lot of hassle − as well as plenty of money you’d otherwise have to spend trying to fix an unexpected issue.

The smart home category is often where we see some of the… oddest products and most memorable announcements. CLOi, we’re looking at you.

What are you most looking forward to at CES 2019? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.