The best of CES 2021 | CNN underlined



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(CNN) –

CES 2021 is here, and the world’s largest annual tech show has never looked so different. But as this year’s event drains from crowded Las Vegas ballrooms in favor of a fully online experience, there are still just so many cool gimmicks and exciting innovations to spark excitement.

From stunning 8K TVs to laptops and desktops that make working from home more seamless than ever, we’ve already seen a ton of great products come out of this all-virtual CES. In order to cross the sea of ​​brilliant new technology and find the best products that we believe are worth your money, we sat down with manufacturers big and small for in-depth briefings, comparing these gadgets to our tested top picks for specs. and features and in some cases we even got our hands on the first units.

With that in mind, here’s our pick of the best gadgets from CES 2021 that you’ll actually want to buy this year.

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook is our current recommendation for the best 2-in-1 Chromebook you can buy, but it retails for $ 999. The new Galaxy Chromebook 2 retains the best aspects of its predecessor (including a vivid display and a stunning Fiesta Red design) while starting at $ 549 much more accessible with more modest specs. Don’t call it a downgrade, however – the Galaxy Chromebook 2 is the first Chromebook with a QLED display, delivering much more vivid colors and finer detail than you’d find on a standard LCD laptop screen. The Chromebook 2’s beautiful display and eye-catching keyboard performed well in our first hands-on tests, and its stunning design makes other CES Chromebooks boring.

If you’re in the market for a gaming monitor to use with your PS5 or Xbox Series X, the new Acer Nitro XV282 KV should be on your radar. This 28-inch display features the latest HDMI 2.1 standard, which you’ll need to fully enjoy the smooth 120fps gameplay that the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles are capable of. It’s also a great option for PC gamers, with AMD FreeSync Premium technology to eliminate screen tearing and 1ms response times for minimal input lag. The Nitro XV 282K KV got our top pick at CES because its HDMI 2.1 support makes it one of the first displays to make your next-gen console gaming as smooth as possible – and could usher in a new wave of monitors. games optimized for PS5 and Xbox Series X. Look for it in May with a starting price of $ 899.

Like most other smart vacuum cleaners, Samsung’s latest doesn’t have the catchiest name. But after a demonstration and an in-person (safely conducted) briefing, the JetBot 90 AI + has proven to bring a lot to the table. It outperforms other smart vacuum cleaners that only feature LiDAR sensors by incorporating cameras and object recognition. This way, he can actually identify what is in his path and change direction. Obstacle avoidance is the * boss’s kiss * on the JetBot 90 for this very reason – it can run around a cable, a pair of sneakers, or the dreaded dog to go. It will even send an alert through the connected app to let you know what it has encountered. This is the first vacuum cleaner to have this next level object avoidance technology, which makes other smart vacuum cleaners pretty dumb. We don’t have a price yet, but the JetBot 90 AI + has a feature set that will leave other smart vacuums in the dirt.

Laptop webcams are generally terrible, which is an issue HP is looking to address with the new HP Elite Dragonfly Max. This powerful 2-in-1 business laptop features a 5MP webcam which, combined with advanced AI-based audio technology, should make you look and sound as presentable as possible in important Zoom meetings. Combine that with a 13.3-inch display with features like HP Eye Ease and HP Sure View Reflect to protect your documents from spies while minimizing eye strain, and the Dragonfly Max is fast becoming the ultimate laptop for the Work at home. While we haven’t tested it directly, the Dragonfly Max’s design, specifications, and features seem to rival the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon – our top pick of laptops for business users – making it the laptop. the most impressive we’ve seen coming out of CES so far. .

The UltraSharp 38 monitor not only gives you an expansive display, but it has the specifications to match. This 37.5-inch WQHD + curved display features a resolution of 3840 X 1600. While it’s not exactly 4K, with this high resolution we would expect it to be sharp and probably difficult to select individual pixels. . The panel should allow it to produce a wide color gamut like previous UltraSharp monitors, one of our current top picks for the best monitors. Those working in creative applications like Photoshop and Illustrator will be able to handle detail-oriented edits with relative ease. And in everyday use, we would expect it to provide plenty of space for emails, spreadsheets, and web browsing. The real kicker is the built-in productivity hub – there are two HDMIs, one DisplayPort, two USB-Cs, an Ethernet jack, and four USB-A ports, among others. It’s an all-in-one docking solution that we believe will truly be a plug-and-play experience. It is not something that all monitors can match. If you’ve squinted an aging monitor and struggled with all kinds of dongles, this looks like the whole thing. We can’t wait to test the UltraSharp 38 monitor when it launches on January 28.

Samsung’s Neo QLED aims to increase brightness level, color vividness and deepen black levels compared to previous generations. This is not the case with an entirely new technology or even a radically new processor, but with miniLED. Samsung’s Quantum Mini LEDs are about 1 / 40th the size of a conventional LED backlight and take away a lot of the packaging. The size reduction allows more LEDs to be placed inside, and the TV can control LED lighting by LED. It’s closer to the pixel-by-pixel imaging found on OLEDs. We got to see it in person, and the 8K Neo QLED caught our eyes with its increased levels of dynamism without causing any bloom or leak. Given Samsung’s expertise in image production and scaling, we feel this will exceed our current overall pick for the best TV, the TCL 6-Series. The specificity that Samsung can offer with miniLEDs should increase the level of clarity and bring brightness to a new level. Pricing is not yet known, but Samsung’s Neo QLEDs will be available later this spring.

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