Ubergizmo’s Best of CES 2023

CES is back, and this 2023 edition was another exciting step to a new normal, as far as tech events are concerned. It was stimulating to experience much more energy, products, and friends than at last year’s CES. Still, seeing as many products and technology as possible was challenging, and it was even harder to pick which ones we liked best. Yet, it had to be done, so here are Ubergizmo’s Best of CES, in no particular order:

ASKA flying car VTOL with lithium battery

ASKA came up with the ASKA A5, a vehicle that can drive on roads like a car (with retracted wings), take off vertically (VOTL) like a helicopter, and fly like a (winged) plane for distance and efficiency. What’s not to like?

This “flying car” is built with advanced materials like carbon fiber and fancy metal alloys. That’s why it is light and durable enough for potential usages such as “emergency response use, military use, as well as on-demand ride-sharing mobility services,” says ASKA.

Samsung Bespoke Flex Refrigerator with Family Hub Plus

For years, Samsung has floated the idea of using the fridge as a Family and Digital Hub. It started with a fridge with a tablet roughly integrated into it. However, the 2023 4-Door Flex Refrigerator with Family Hub Plus edition has an impeccable 32-inch touch display integration with a computer many times the original Family Hub’s.

Furthermore, Samsung’s Family Hub content and app ecosystem are much more complete now, making the concept much more attractive… if you can afford it. Finally, many people don’t realize how neat the product’s surface finish is. If you have a chance, check the Bespoke products in a store.

LG Signature M3 Wireless TV

LG is no stranger to large TV innovations and has led the OLED TV market for years, including with rollable TVs! This year, the new LG Signature M3 Wireless TV is geared toward customers who put design above all. As designers sometimes say, “less is more.”

This LG TV could augment the room, not on a wall, but in the middle of a space. It could offer a window onto another world or become a piece of art. LG’s proprietary wireless protocol is meticulously designed to avoid radio interferences to display a 4K/120Hz image as if you had a high-speed wired connection. Expect the competition to copy this soon.

Lenovo YogaBook 9i

Being small, light, and fast is no longer anything special in the world of laptops. Of course, specialty laptops can be any combination of these three, but that might not make you more productive. The Lenovo YogaBook 9i is the first commercial laptop with a genuine dual-display setup that will make anyone more productive!

Its design is comparable in weight and size to any other 13.3-inch laptop when closed. However, you must also carry its external wireless keyboard and foldable stand to complete the package. You don’t “have to” use either accessory, as it’s possible to get by with the virtual keyboard. Now, let’s hope Lenovo builds 15.6” and 18” versions!

Acer Predator Helios 18 Gaming Laptop

Acer’s new Predator Helios 18 gaming laptop offers an extremely large display surface in a powerful mobile gaming rig. Its 18-inch display features a 2560×1600 resolution with refresh rate options from 165 to 250Hz. A 16-inch version is also available.

You might be able to reach these insane speeds thanks to the 13th Gen Intel Core processor options (with up to 32GB of RAM), paired with NVIDIA’s freshly announced RTX 40 Series for mobile. Acer also offers up to 2TB of SSD storage, with the rare RAID0 option for maximum read speed.

Alienware x14 and x16 Gaming Laptops

The Alienware x14 R2 might be the “world’s thinnest 14-inch gaming laptop”, according to Dell, the parent company of Alienware. We can believe it because this computer looks extremely thin despite a configuration that goes “up to” the NVIDIA RTX 4060 80W paired with an Intel Core i7 13620H.

If you like the x14’s style, but want a bit more hardware, check out the Alienware x16, as it is configurable with faster hardware (RTX 4080 + Core i9 13900HK). Both laptops offer excellent image quality and could be used by Creative professionals.

L’Oreal HAPTA Lipstick Applier for People With Disability

The L’Oreal HAPTA is a “makeup applicator” that helps people with motor impairment to perform gestures that otherwise require a relatively high degree of motion precision, such as applying lipstick or drawing eyebrows. Developed in partnership with Verily Life Sciences (an Alphabet/Google company), this device uses a stabilization technology that most people would compare to a smartphone gyro stabilizer.

At the moment, lipstick is the first beauty application of this technology, but L’Oreal is open to other use cases. HAPTA should appear under the Lancôme brand sometime in 2023.

Airgo Pro 3 & Airgo 3 Audio Smartglasses

Airgo is not going after your classic smartglass market, which claims to put a screen in front of your eyes. Instead, the company wants to deliver spatial audio in a convenient and comfortable form factor: open-ear audio.

The idea has been exploited before, and we have some Anker Soundcore (upcoming review) that are good examples of audio glasses. But Airgo delivers spatial audio as no such glasses has before, so it’s clearly worthy of praise. We like this form factor because nothing covers or enters your ear, so that’s much more comfortable to wear.

TDK Energy Harvesting InWheelSense Platform

TDK demonstrated the latest version of the energy harvesting InWheelSense modules at CES. Little known to the public, InWheelSense could become an indispensable sensor for future semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles that benefit from having more sensors and data.

This module uses the car’s motion to generate energy that local sensors can utilize. The quantity of power is not huge by smartphone standards, but it is many times what is ordinarily available to wheel sensors. With it, more accurate data can be gathered at a higher rate, giving a car’s computer more information to analyze and react.

Motorola ThinkPhone

The ThinkPhone is a Motorola smartphone destined to be paired with Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of products. If you remember, Motorola was acquired by Lenovo in 2014. At CES, the ThinkPhone demonstration showed a superb integration with a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, where you can use the phone remotely from the PC, use the phone as a PC webcam (rear+front cameras), share the clipboard between both devices, and more!

The phone/PC interaction is the best we’ve seen, and the ThinkPhone even features a dedicated “TrackPoint-red” button on the left side to activate some features. What we saw was running smoothly and was anything we’ve seen before.

Movano Evie Smart Ring: Health Wearable for Women

The Evie smart ring might be on the cust of carving a large place for itself in the smart ring market, which brands like Oura pioneered. Evie can track many health metrics, including resting heart rate, heart rate variability, SpO2, respiration rate, skin temperature variability, steps, active minutes, calories burned, sleep stages, and duration. However, it can also track “period, ovulation and menstrual symptom,” which is why Movano calls it a product for women. Unlike other rings, Movano is seeking FDA approval for the device to show users the products meet ISO13485 and cGMP certifications.

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