CES 2022: Major Announcements

Sun, Jan 9, 2022

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Here's a roundup of all the major announcements from CES

CES 2022: Major Announcements

Welcome to 2022; I plan to do my best to publish articles on this site more often. First off, as with every year, let’s start with CES. This year as you can see, I’m doing it a little differently; this article will focus on (summarize) announcements that all the major tech companies made. I plan to write a This Week In Tech article covering things from outside CES (if I have time) and maybe later this week ill write an article about the best things form CES.

Computer Stuff

AMD

At their CES presser, AMD talked about 6000 Series mobile CPUs, GPUs and updates on Ryzen Gen 4; I’m not qualified to comment on this, so here are some links:

CPUs GPUs
pcper.com RX 6500 - AnandTech
CPUs - AnandTech AM5 - AnandTech Ryzen 7 w/ V-Cache - pcper

Asus

During their events (they hold 2, one for ROG and one for everything else), Asus announced updates to their entire lineup, including Zephyrus and Flow models getting 16:10 displays. They also said that the Zephyrus G14 (and possibly other Zephyrus models) are getting a new display technology (Called the Nebula Display) with complete coverage of the DCIP3 colour space and a high refresh rate, adaptive sync and, Dolby Vision. They also announced a spec bump to the Zephyrus Pro Duo: it gets DDR5 memory and a MiniLED variant of that new Nebula Display.

At event #2 Asus spent most of the time announcing spec bumps to the rest of their non-gaming lineup, The one thing that really caught my attention was the ZenBook Fold after Lenovo started selling a similar device (that I liked) last year. It seems like Asus’s will be better though, it’ll have a bigger screen (17-inches compared to I think 13) Intel 12th Gen graphics, Dolby (Vision & Atmos) and Thunderbolt 4. It’s planned to launch later this year but there’s no exact date or pricing as of yet.

Links:

ZenBook Fold ROG
The Verge The Verge

Intel

Intel announced new CPUs; they are closer to being competitive with AMD. But the big announcement was Intel’s first discrete GP U Arc. Arc will have XeSS Super Sampling and shared memory with integrated graphics in GPUs (like AMDs Smart Shift Max). Intel Arc GPUs will launch sometime this quarter (Q1 2022).

Intel Inside

Links to further coverage: Press Release

Arc GPUs 12th Gen CPUs
The Verge The Verge
AnandTech
PC Perspective
Linus Tech Tips

Lenovo

At CES, Lenovo announced their usual slate of spec upgrades. But they showed off some new products, the ThinkPad Z Series, which has Ryzen Pro 6000 chips and is made from recycled materials. But the big announcement was the dual-screen ThinkBook Plus Gen 3; unlike Asus’s dual-screen laptops, the 2nd screen is next to the keyboard, not above it.

Links to further coverage: Press Release about Z Series Press Release about ThinkBook Plus Gen 3 (includes all other announcements also)

Nvidia During their event, Nvidia announced two new GPUs (their specs are in the table below) and a few things. They also announced an integrated game design suite called Nvidia Studio. It will integrate with various programs that game designers already use and can sync with the cloud between those apps. Like every year, Nvidia also talked about AI and autonomous cars, but all of that went way over my head.

RTX 3050 3080 Ti
VRAM 8GB GDDR6 16GB GDDR6
Availability Jan 27 Feb 1
Price $249 $2499

Samsung

This year Samsung made a few announcements, but most of it was pretty crappie. TWhat they announced that I found most interesting was the Freestyle mobile projector. It is entirely wireless, has smart speaker functionality built-in. You can preorder it now for $899 (the US Only). They also announced a few gaming things, including a game streaming hub that integrates with Stadia, GeForce Now & more. Also, in gaming, they shoed the Odyssey Ark gaming monitor. They also made an important sustainability-related announcement, by 2025, all Samsung mobile devices and TVs will use zero standby power.

Here’s a list of all the smaller IoT related announcements they made:

Sony

Sony’s CES presentation was surprisingly non-technical; after announcing their financial results, they talked (a lot) about their movies. Once they got into tech, they announced the PSVR 2 and that the next Horizon game will be a PSVR 2 exclusive. They also showed a concept car that has a PlayStation built-in.

Cars

Mercedes Vision EQXX Concept Car Unveil

The EQXX looks really sleek and awesomely futuristic without looking stupid. Something that was mentioned in the presentation that I found interesting was that they used a game engine (didn’t mention which) to design the car. When I saw the car, the first thing I thought was, “Wow, that’s not a Tesla, that’s what Tesla’s should look like considering their futuristic MO.”

Vision EQXX

GM

GM’s keynote was pretty eventful. First, they announced that Walmart will start using BrightDrop vehicles in 2023. The most significant announcement was that they would start making an electric Chevy Silverado. The Silverado electric will have a range of 400 miles; the RST model will have a 10,000 lbs towing capacity & 1300 lbs payload capacity. It has the ability to charge other EVs, it turns on when authorized devices enter the cab and, has 350kW fast charging. GM also announced that they will be releasing an Equinox EV, (this year for $30,000 MSRP) and a Blazer EV.