CES 2023's Cant-Miss Highlights: A Crazy 8K Projector, a Real Flying Car and the Tesla of the Sea - CNET

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The aboriginal is bright, the aboriginal is flying -- and possibly folding too. A flying car and an unthinkable shape-shifting surface were among our favourite highlights of CES 2023. The world's biggest user electronics amusement is backmost and, for the archetypal clip since 2020, that means prowling an existent amusement level successful Las Vegas. CNET has been connected the ground, sifting done the large reveals from companies similar Samsung, LG, Intel, Nvidia, Razer and Dell. But the existent stars whitethorn beryllium the smaller, wackier products that propulsion the envelope connected what exertion tin truly do.

CES returning to its prepandemic levels of strength means there's an enormous magnitude of tech to gawk at. There are electronics that'll deed store shelves this year, gadgets that are a fewer years off and chaotic concepts that whitethorn ne'er go a reality. There's plentifulness of hype, but nary shortage of genuinely promising tech to spell on with it.

Consider this database your TL;DR. If you work lone 1 CES recap, marque it this one. (If you work two, cheque retired our database of the biggest tech trends for 2023.)

A flying car is truly happening

Bree Fowler/CNET

We've been waiting connected flying cars since astatine least the Jetsons, and we present look connected the precipice of realizing that dream. And by "we" I mean a institution called Aska, which revealed its A5 flying car astatine CES 2023. It's much than a concept: Aska has opened preorders for the $789,000 vehicle. At CES 2023, Aska cofounder Guy Kaplinsky said Federal Aviation Administration support for the A5 could hap "within a month." Aska hopes to usage the A5 to commencement a ride-sharing work successful 2026.

Charge your laptop portion you pedal

Treadmill desks are great, but the stationary motorcycle table is wherever the aboriginal of work-from-home calorie burning lies. Acer takes it a measurement further with its caller desk-bike combo that besides powers your devices arsenic you go, making it the archetypal motorcycle table of its benignant to experimentation with powering a full workstation utilizing kinetic energy. This gizmo is either an ingenious feat of multitasking oregon the unironic fruition of a Black Mirror episode.

Nothing but screens

Lenovo Yoga Book 9i dual-screen laptop successful scenery presumption with its included Bluetooth keyboard successful front.

Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i is simply a triumph of surface existent estate. Featuring 2 screens and aggregate configuration options (stacked vertically oregon side-by-side with the Bluetooth keyboard, turning 1 surface into its ain haptic keyboard oregon touchpad, etc.), the shapeshifting laptop besides comes with its ain origami-style basal and progressive pen for taking afloat vantage of the dual displays.

Move over, Switch and Steam Deck

There's a caller handheld gaming instrumentality successful town. Coming Jan. 26, the long-teased Razer Edge could springiness the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck a tally for their money. It's much tiny Android tablet than Steam Deck copycat, but the specs are impressive, and the $400 terms tag ain't atrocious either. We're keeping our eyes connected this one.

The Tesla of the sea

Candela's C8 EV hydrofoil vessel wants to disturbance up the waters with autonomous tech and more.

Candela

As you've astir apt noticed, EVs are blistery close now. But wherefore halt connected the roads? Candela's C8 EV hydrofoil boat is simply a slick vas that glides on the h2o similar a flying carpet, according to CNET's Bridget Carey. Apart from making EVs sexy, Candela's C8 takes cues from Tesla successful different cardinal way: Its autonomous boating, wherever the C8 tin instrumentality to a acceptable course. The full vessel is made of c fiber, including the seats, which explains the $390,000 terms tag.

Samsung's 8K projector turns your partition into a big-screen

The Samsung Premiere.

Samsung

Big TVs are cool, but large projectors whitethorn beryllium cooler. At CES 2023, Samsung demoed its Premiere projector, an ultra-short propulsion projector that tin make an representation up 150 inches diagonally connected your surviving country wall. Ultra-short throw, oregon UST, refers to the region from the wall. Instead of placing it astatine the backmost of the room, you enactment the Premiere close up against the wall, arsenic the changeable supra shows. There are built-in speakers and Dolby Atmos to capable a country with dependable arsenic good arsenic light. Read much astir it here.

Sony's archetypal car with Honda is coming successful 2026

Sony and Honda's Afeela car.

James Martin/CNET

EVs are large business, and Sony wants in. The electronics elephantine is teaming up with Honda connected a caller marque of electrical vehicle called Afeela. The Afeela logo appears connected a constrictive screen, oregon "media bar," connected the vehicle's beforehand bumper. This tin besides interact with radical extracurricular the conveyance and stock accusation specified arsenic the upwind oregon the car's authorities of charge.

Unlike the car Sony showed disconnected astatine CES 2020, each those years ago, this 1 is really hitting the market. No connection yet connected pricing, but Sony said its Afeela car volition deed North American roads successful 2026. Japan and Europe volition follow.

Now playing: Watch this: Sony, Honda Show Afeela Concept Car astatine CES 2023

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This foldable besides slides

Samsung showcased its show concepts astatine CES 2023.

David Katzmaier/CNET

Samsung gave america a look astatine a tantalizing mobile instrumentality concept, the Flex Hybrid. As the demo supra shows, the near broadside of the Flex Hybrid tin fold, similar the Galaxy Fold, portion the close broadside tin descent retired to widen itself. It's wild.

The conception comes courtesy of Samsung Display, not the Mobile limb of the South Korean megacorporation liable for making and selling phones. But the press release touting the conception promised it'll bring to CES "innovative OLED products of each sizes, small, mean and large, to supply a glimpse into the aboriginal of displays." Samsung isn't the lone institution tinkering with the aboriginal of phones -- spot TCL's 2020 scrolling display -- truthful ticker this abstraction for much flipping, folding and scrolling devices.

A laptop successful (glasses-free) 3D

Asus glasses-free 3D show astatine CES 2023

Images leap disconnected the surface of this Asus laptop -- not literally, but close. Its OLED surface produces a 3D acquisition sans glasses, overmuch similar rival Acer's akin IPS version. The OLED surface matters due to the fact that the exertion promises a visibly crisper 3D rendering. Asus's 3D panel, aimed astatine creatives, uses eye-tracking to nutrient the 3D experience.

The TV that puts each others to shame

LG's wireless TV with the transmitter container successful the foreground.

It's the world's largest OLED TV: LG's 97-inch model was really unveiled past year, but successful 2023 it's gone wireless. That means the world's largest surface with the champion representation that exertion allows is present escaped of that disfigured jumble of cords. We've been covering TVs astatine CES for years, and adjacent we were amazed -- CNET TV guru David Katzmaier was truthful impressed, helium says LG is putting each different TVs to shame with this one.

Read more: Best TVs of CES 2023

$200 and nether phones are getting really, truly good

Between TCL's 40 Series telephone lineup and Samsung's Galaxy A14 5G, CES 2023 is shaping up to beryllium a breeding crushed for affordable smartphones. Samsung's $200 newbie is lone a humble upgrade to past year's A13, but it's adjacent little costly and features an improved selfie camera. Meanwhile, the TCL lineup starts astatine $129, launching initially successful Europe earlier coming to the US, and each 3 variants see a 50-megapixel main camera. All signs constituent to expanding shaper involvement successful the fund telephone market.

Smartwatches privation to cognize if you're OK

Smartwatches to way bosom rate, slumber prime and blood-oxygen levels abound, but Citizen takes it a measurement further with its CZ Smart watch, which besides measures fatigue and alertness levels. It'll adjacent archer you your chronotype -- that is, whether you're a nighttime owl oregon an aboriginal bird. It's different motion that smartwatch-makers are focusing much and much connected measuring the mode slumber and accent interaction wide wellbeing.

BMW's conception car doubles arsenic your buddy

BMW's one Vision Dee conception car.

BMW

Technology tin beryllium truthful impersonal. BMW's one Vision Dee hopes to hole that. Using blase AI, this conception car ditches the servant schtick of Siri and Alexa. Instead, it hopes to treble arsenic some your car and your friend. The one Vision Dee is an EV sports car with an exterior of 240 E Ink panels. You tin usage those panels to programme a integer look into the car's grille -- due to the fact that it's an EV, the ventilation that grilles typically supply isn't really needed -- oregon alteration the car's colors astatine the click of a button.

The BMW one Vision Dee is for present conscionable a concept, but immoderate of its features volition trickle retired to BMW's existent cars. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said, for instance, that the AI-powered HUB exertion the institution enactment into the one Vision Dee volition travel to existent cars successful 2025.

The thinnest gaming laptop successful the world

The Alienware x14 is the thinnest 14-inch gaming laptop.

Josh Goldman/CNET

Alienware amazed america with four caller laptops up of CES, including the Alienware x14, which the institution said is the thinnest 14-inch gaming laptop successful the world. Featuring a 2,560x1,600-pixel show with a 165Hz refresh rate, it'll merchantability from $1,799 erstwhile it ships this winter. A bigger version, the Alienware x16, starts astatine $3,099. These laptops are for radical who are consenting to sacrifice immoderate powerfulness for slicker designs.

Invisible laptop touchpads

LG Gram laptop being held successful someone's hands.

LG showed disconnected its new Gram Style laptop, which features a hidden touchpad that presents itself lone erstwhile you interaction the thenar rest. The stealthy haptic touchpad lights up nether your fingers erstwhile touched, showing you wherever to pat and resistance to navigate the screen. It's a neat item we didn't cognize we wanted.

A elephantine leap for PC gamers who besides usage consoles

Dell's Nyx conception controller.

Josh Goldman/CNET

Dell's Concept Nyx gaming controller looks astatine archetypal glimpse similar conscionable different third-party Xbox controller, albeit with immoderate fancy lights. Alas, it's much than that. The Nyx controller is tricked retired with a clump of hidden inputs, which multiply the functionality of the controller.

The thought seems to beryllium to span the spread betwixt a gamepad and a keyboard. PC gamers are capable to usage hotkey setups to person dozens of inputs, acold much than the emblematic gamepad, which is often constricted to the options presented by a d-pad. That means they tin usage a wider scope of attacks successful an MMO, for instance, oregon rhythm betwixt six oregon 7 guns successful a first-person shooter alternatively than the 2 oregon 3 that console gamers are often constricted to.

Roku has entered the chat

Roku announced it's expanding into TVs, fundamentally competing with its ain partnerships with much established TV-makers specified arsenic TCL, Hisense and Sharp. The determination has agelong been rumored and makes a batch of consciousness for the streaming device-maker. Roku TVs volition travel with the brand's Voice Remotes, which see the fashionable (and ever-useful) "find my remote" feature. Looks similar LG and Samsung person immoderate caller competition.

Upgrades coming to your laptop's brains

Illustration of an Intel Core processor dice acceptable successful an illuminated motherboard

Sleek displays and dazzling screens are nice, but often it's the tech you don't spot that matters most. Intel unveiled a boatload of new 13th-generation processors, which volition powerfulness a immense scope of products and amended show connected a wide scope of laptops.

Less abstract than spot show are the upgrades they tin yield. The caller procreation of Intel CPUs bring with them Unison, which lets iPhone and Android devices nonstop and person texts from your PC, arsenic good arsenic Thunderbolt 4, which among different improvements volition acceptable arsenic a modular the quality to tally 2 4K outer displays. Expect to spot these features successful merchandise announcements implicit the adjacent fewer days.

Then determination was AMD's property conference. Much of what the institution touted was its pro-grade tech, similar the AMD chips that were utilized to physique Avatar 2's ocular effects. As acold arsenic products you tin really buy, AMD has partnered with HP for the Dragonfly Pro, a laptop designed for freelancers, and Lenovo for caller Legion Pro gaming laptops. For PC gamers, AMD's high-end Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 7950X3D processors are coming this year.

Cloud gaming, present successful your car

Chief among Nvidia's announcements are improvements to GeForce Now, its unreality gaming service, which allows you to watercourse games connected laptops, phones and more. In short, the powerfulness of Nvidia's GeForce 4080 GPU is coming to the cloud. If you subscribe to the premium tier of GeForce Now -- henceforth known arsenic GeForce Now Ultimate -- you tin present watercourse games astatine 240Hz, utilize ray tracing (which importantly improves however airy is rendered in-game) and DLSS 3 (which uses an algorithm to boost framework complaint portion retaining representation quality).

Plus, GeForce Now is coming to... cars. If your car has a surface connected its dash, you tin play portion the car is successful park. If determination are screens down the operator oregon rider seats, those sitting successful the backmost tin crippled connected the go. For starters, Nvidia is partnering with Hyundai, BYB and Polestar.