CES 2012: What's In Store?

With the CES 2012 consumer technology show due to open its doors on 10 January, we thought we'd take a look at what we're likely to see at this year's event.

Every year, tech manufacturers from all around the world descend on Nevada's most famous town to show off new technology and upcoming products. The CES is a great opportunity to discover upcoming tends in the consumer tech market, to try out the products that'll soon be on shelves and in our homes, and to discover all kinds of futuristic gadgets and gizmos. In fact, the CES is possibly the hottest event in the consumer tech calendar!


Tablets

Like last year, 2012 is set to be a vintage year for touchscreen tablets, with several new models due to be presented this week. With new, more powerful processors (four-core CPUs), top-of-the-range tablets are showcase products for many manufacturers, and they're likely to take centre stage on several stands at this year's event. The aim for all is still to bring the iPad down from its top-spot, as the Apple tablet remains the undisputed market leader. Plus, tablet prices are likely to come down during the course on 2012, which is no bad thing!

While the majority of tablets will continue to run on Android, Microsoft's Windows 8 tablet OS is also due to land this year.

Smartphones

Year after year, these function-packed products go from strength to strength. The main things manufacturers will be competing on this year are screen quality, with ever-higher resolutions; camera quality, with backlit sensors that give entry-level compacts a run for their money; and processing speeds, with more powerful CPUs (four-core CPUs, for example). Near Field Communication (NFC) is likely to be rolled out more widely too, and while contactless payment systems are still finding their feet in the UK, this technology can also be used for transferring data such as contacts between two compatible smartphones.

TV

Televisions are again likely to be big news at this year's show. After a whole load of less-than-sucessful 3D TVs and connected TVs that are still over-priced and lacking direction, manufacturers are striving to find a way of standing out in the TV market. However, even though three-dimensional content is still lacking, 3D technology ain't going nowhere for the time being. At this year's CES, we're expecting to see some very, very expensive glasses-free 3D TVs, for example. Plus, passive 3D technology, initially championed by LG, will continue to gain ground among other manufacturers.

Otherwise, we're expecting to see some OLED TVs. LG, for example, claims to have found a way of adapting the technology to push down production costs, even though its new 55" OLED TV will still set you back $8,000. In fact, OLED is currently mainly used for small displays like smartphone screens, as producing larger-sized screens is just too expensive.

Another thing we're likely to see more of is 4K resolution, ushering in the post-Full HD age by quadrupling screen resolutions.

The smart TVs—or web-connected TVs—that were big news at last year's show will again be making an appearance on many manufacturers' stands. With a new and reworked smart TV platform, Google is promising big improvements this year too, with Google TVs in store from LG, Samsung and Sony. Could this be a sign of manufacturers preparing themselves for the upcoming arrival of Apple TV, which is rumoured to be landing this year?


Cameras

We're likely to see a fair few cameras at this year's CES. With smartphone cameras now boasting ever-more functions and improved picture quality, and hybrid compacts gaining ground fast, classic compact makers are having to update their ranges more frequently to stay one step ahead of the game. This year, we'll see compacts with Wi-Fi connectivity for sharing and backing-up snaps, as well as a new and improved set of expert compacts with more powerful zoom lenses, among other things.

While hybrid cameras and compacts with interchangeable lenses are still the stars of the show in the camera market, we're expecting to see some new SLR ranges released in 2012 too.

Laptops

While many people think the laptop market is running out of steam—no doubt under pressure from touchscreen tablets and the widespread availability of cheap 13-inch notebooks—many manufacturers are hanging on in there. The hottest news in the laptop market right now is the ultrabook—a sleek, stylish kind of laptop inspired by the Apple MacBook Air (note that, as ever, Apple won't have a stand at this year's CES). The ultrabook is a slim and light kind of laptop that boasts power-packed performances—a sure-fire winning formula! Although they're quite expensive for the time being, ultrabook prices are liekly to drop as more and more manufacturers release models.


There'll no doubt be a good few surprises in store too, but—fear not—our team of journalists will have everything covered. We've dispatched Vincent Alzieu, Romain Thuret and Pierre-Jean Alzieu to Las Vegas to cover this year's event, so stay tuned to DigitalVersus for all their news.


> CES 2012 Live from Las Vegas: See all news

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