What mattered at CES on Day 1
The most exciting news from the first official day of the show, from massive tablets to 4K OLED TVs to CNET's Next Big Thing panel.
It may feel like it's been running for months already, but today is actually the first official day of CES. But even after yesterday's whirlwind of product announcements, there are still plenty of new electronics to savour, and we've got stories on them all at ces.cnet.com. But if you don't have time to pick through everything, here's the news that mattered the most.
Despite having a press conference yesterday, Panasonic saved its most interesting revelations for today. First is its answer to Sony's concept 4K OLED TV, its own concept model that's very similar. Panasonic claims it's the world's biggest, at 56-inches, but that's the same size as the Sony model unveiled yesterday. Bad luck guys. It weighs 27 pounds, is less than half an inch thick and has a resolution of 3,840x2,160. Stay tuned to ces.cnet.com for a proper hands-on preview soon.
Panasonic's second big announcement made more of a splash -- a 4K tablet with a 20-inch screen. With a resolution of 3,840x2,560, that screen sure is detailed, and it weighs five pounds. It runs Windows 8 and has an Intel Core i5 processor inside. I saw this thing on the show floor being demoed both as a remote control for photographers and as a tool for architects. Check out our story for more details and pictures: this thing is off the chain.
"It's a tablet, it's a PC, it's a console." That's how Razer describes its new Edge gaming machine that we got a detailed hands-on with today. The basic box looks like a tablet, but thanks to various accessories you can turn it into a handheld console or plug it into a TV like a normal console. Rich Brown and Scott Stein were cautiously impressed, head over to their piece for more.
If it's one thing the world needs, it's more 5-inch Android phones. So thanks ZTE for the Grand S, a smartphone running Jelly Bean with a 13-megapixel camera, 1.7GHz quad-core processor and 4G. Lynn La calls it ZTE's "most chic handset" and thinks it bodes well for its future models.
Finally, CNET's annual CES Next Big Thing panel was full to bursting as always. This year, businessman Mark Cuban, LG Electronics honcho James Fishler, Ford's Sheryl Connelly and Sprint exec Fared Adib were all asked a simple question: what's the next big thing? Read Andrew Nusca's summary to see what insights this interesting group of people had.
What products have you been most excited by at CES? Let me know in the comments below and check back for another round-up of the hottest news tomorrow.
Like this? Have a read of my roundup of what mattered at CES on day 2.