aNewDomain — Today marked the unofficial beginning of the 2017 Consumer Electronic Show as major press events and product announcements streamed from Las Vegas ahead of the Thursday show opening.
As is usually the case with the first CES unveilings, it’s all about the hardware.
On the processor front, Intel is announcing generation seven of its Core processors, Kaby Lake. While most new hardware features the new chip, the actual improvements are minimal, though. Think of this design as more of an iteration than a wholesale generational change.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm is continuing to push the envelope on the ARM side with Snapdragon. At CES 2017, it debuts the 835.
And what about gaming? It’s always the thing at CES, and this year’s no different. Several leading manufacturers revealed updated gaming laptops, including Acer’s ridiculous $8,999 Predator 21 X gaming laptop. This built-to-order laptop definitely shows off Acer’s manufacturing prowess.
Luckily, that’s also evident in Acer’s CES 2017 unveiling of more affordable versions of its Predator line.
Also at the show Dell will be using the CES 2017 news hook to deliver a refresh of its popular Inspiron and Alienware gaming laptop lines.
And Lenovo surprised with a brand new gaming laptop line dubbed Legion, as well as new Alexa-enabled speakers and updates to Miix and Thinkpad X1.
In other news, two days before the official launch of CES 2017, Amazon is making a big push around Alexis.
And HP’s Sprout all-in-one will attempt to show showgoers that finally it’s ready for primetime.
Meanwhile, Dish has revealed a new take on the streaming box and Mattel, well, it’s taking the wraps off a digital assistant — to children.
Also at CES 2017: Kingston unveils a 2TB thumb drive, Linksys jumps into the mesh networking category and LeEcho announces US availability of two new Android-powered smart bikes. And Huawei is in town to announce the American release of its Honor 6X, an astonishingly inexpensive SoC at $299. On the other side of the pricing scale comes Acer, which is here to announce and promote a rugged Chromebook.
And it wouldn’t be CES without robots, you know. Mayfield’s new Kuri home robot is the first one to make CES news, but I guarantee you it won’t be the last.
I’ll be here in Las Vegas with more CES 2017 coverage for you all week long.
For aNewDomain, I’m Mike Olsen.
Cover: Justin Webb for aNewDomainTV, All Rights Reserved.
