CES is arguably the biggest tech event that typically hosts presentations of new products and technology in the tech industry. CES, formally an acronym for Consumer Electronics Show is an annual trade show organized by Consumer Technology Association. The event is held every year in January at the Las Vegas Convention, Las Vegas, United States.
Being held since 1967, we have seen a lot of innovative and Promethean technologies at CES.
Since it is January, it is once again a time for all the tech enthusiast around the globe to rejoice. 2019 CES has promised to offer a lot of surprises and news from electronics companies all over the world. Some of these surprises are to be expected from biggest names in laptop manufacturing.
Here is a look of top 5 laptop trends that we might witness from CES this year:
MacBook Air Alternatives
Apple recently revealed its much-awaited MacBook Air and managed to receive much praise for its high-end although delayed upgrade. The new MacBook comes in with Retina display and a new Intel processor making it one of the fastest laptops in the market today.
However, not everyone is a fan of Apple chiefly because of its over-the-top price range. Naturally, The CES 2019 is expected to reveal a few of MacBook alternatives from the likes of Dell and Huawei as they had previously proven to be a tough competition for MacBooks with their XPS13 and MateBook X Pro respectively.
This year it would also be interesting to see if leading laptop manufacturers will be introducing more entry-level laptops with Intel’s lower-powered Y-series processor instead of U-series chipsets as we have seen with PixelBook, MacBook Air and HP Spectre.
Next-generation Mobile Graphics Cards
2018 was a great year for laptops as a lot of innovation went into the making of laptops. Apart from typical physical attributes, there was a special focus for the gaming performance of the devices. CES 2019 would be the perfect place to reveal a GPU.
Since the release of RTX 2080, 2080 Ti, and RTX 2070, there have been a lot of rumors regarding the mobile version these cards. Leaks have also pointe to the release of RTX 2070, 2070 Max-Q variant, along with 2060, 2050 Ti and 2050.
It is expected from companies like Intel, Nvidia, and AMD to reveal portable graphics cards for gaming laptops.
All Eyes on AMD
While Intel and Nvidia have been dominating the CES every year, AMD seems to be changing the game this year. 2019 is AMD’s first-time CES key-note presentation which will be delivered by the company’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su. AMD might be looking forward to making some huge announcements with this presentation.
AMD has recently taken the covers of its Zen 2 processor architecture, showcasing a 7-nanometer design which might effectively make way for the next-generation Ryzen CPUs. AMD is expected to announce a lot of products based on the Zen2 architecture. AMD is also expected to announce widely expected Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, Ryzen 3000 series APUs, and a new Vega 2 graphics card. It would be interesting to see if some of these processors end up powering cheaper end gaming laptops from Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
Better Batter Backup in Laptops
Qualcomm recently announced the Snapdragon 850 and claimed it would provide a long-term and almost 21 hours backup on always connected PCs. This claim has set the bar high for other processor manufacturers. Considering most laptops with Intel processor only last about 12-15 hours, it would be interesting to see how Intel takes on this challenge presented by Qualcomm.
Latest laptops featuring Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake CPUs have had to struggle with battery life. Intel might reveal plans for a new processor that will actually increase battery life on laptops.
Experimental Form factors on Gaming Laptops
It has been 2 years since Acer revealed its Predator 21X, a gaming laptop with a 21-inch curved display. Although the laptop was targeted at high-end gamers with its curved display, mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches. CES 2019 definitely is expected to launch some hardcore gaming laptop with experimental form factors.
The 2-in-1 form factor had been a popular form factor in 2018, although Dell recently filed a patent for a different kind of 2-in-1 laptop recently, a 2-in-1 laptop that has a dual screen which can be connected to the system using magnetic strip.