CES 2022 is almost underway and Las Vegas is about to get nerdy with the return of the in-person consumer tech spectacular!
Officially kicking off on Wednesday, Jan. 5, the Consumer Electronics Show gives us a preview into what kinds of gadgets you can look forward to getting this year — and in some cases a glimpse of the future.
With Covid-19 concerns rising again this isn’t going to be the massive in-person event that we saw pre-Covid with hundreds of thousands of attendees crammed into convention halls. However, fewer attendees doesn’t mean fewer announcements, thousands of awesome new gadgets are still going to be launched at CES 2022.
While we aren’t on the ground in Las Vegas this year, we will still be bringing you all of the latest news from the event including our hands-on impressions of some of the hottest laptops, tablets and more coming in 2022.
Laptops at CES 2022
Laptops at CES 2022 are often predictable, but really exciting at the same time. Throughout the many teases and product announcements we expect to see, there will be some key specs that will give us a glimpse at the next 12 months in the category. There are also always a few wildcards in the mix to spice things up.
- 12th Gen Intel processors: Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs have been stirring up a storm on the desktop front by taking the fight to AMD’s latest Ryzen chips and winning. We predict some mobile CPU announcements from Intel and some of the latest lineups from OEMs to feature them.
- Mini LED: You’ve seen this new display tech start to sneak into Windows laptop lines and make it big in the new M1 MacBook Pro. CES 2022 is primed to be the time we see Mini LED go big.
- DDR5 RAM: Multitasking is about to get a whole lot bigger, faster and power efficient. Compared to DDR4 RAM, you can drastically increase the clock speed without expending more energy. That should be more than enough to handle Google Chrome.
- The QHD gaming laptop trend continues: 12th Gen Intel and DDR5 RAM are going to work alongside dedicated RTX 30-series GPUs to create some real portable gaming beasts. But the more visibly noticeable difference is the continued move over to QHD displays. The maximum refresh rate we’ve seen so far in 1440p screens is 165Hz, but a jump to 300Hz would confirm its spot in Esports enthusiasts’ hearts.
Phones at CES 2022
With Mobile World Congress just a couple of months after CES and many of the big OEMs holding their own, we rarely see any big phone news emerge from Vegas.
However, we’re in a slightly different position than usual. With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 announced, alongside Samsung, TCL and Sony being at the event, there may be some surprises lined up. There have even been rumbles of the OnePlus 10 making its debut.
Don’t expect any other flagships to arrive, but we could see some mid-range device refreshes and that has been a hot category over the last couple of years.
Headphones at CES 2022
It should come as absolutely no surprise that there will be new headphones and true wireless earbuds at CES 2022. With LG, Samsung, Sony, Klipsch, JBL and more being at the show, alongside numerous more attending virtually, expect a host of manufacturers who are set to have a lot to say about audio.
I’m not going to say these are predictions — more of a personal wishlist. I hope we see improvements to battery life across true wireless earbuds (four hours is simply not enough), alongside more people moving to a dual-driver sound structure. The separation of having a Knowles balanced armature driver handling the highs makes a profound impact on the spaciousness of the sound production.
Plus, after seeing Apple drop Spatial Audio into its AirPods line-up and the likes of Sony 360 Reality Audio in past years, it would be fair to expect more companies making moves in this area.
TVs at CES 2022
The TV world has largely shown its hand for the future. As the march towards 8K resolutions and high refresh rates goes on, the move toward Mini LED technology is clearly going to be the talk of the show as well.
Sony, LG and Samsung will bring their big screen energy to the show with a usual slew of 100-inch monsters, but keep an eye out for these Mini LED panels too, as they will be the future of televisions. Not only that, but we may also see some Smart TV OS updates and some interesting conversations around the future of HDMI I/O.
While the latest and greatest TV tech tends to mean eye-watering prices, this could be the year we see 8K come down into more mainstream price points with companies like TCL and HiSense already coming in around a $2,000 price point.
We’ll be keeping this page updated with all of the latest from CES as it happens so bookmark it now to follow along with us for the rest of CES 2022.
Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a writer at Laptop Mag. He specializes in finding the best deals to make sure you never pay more than you should for gadgets! Jason takes a particular interest in writing and creating videos about laptops, headphones and games. He has previously written for Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you’ll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn’t already.
