CES 2013 Preview

It’s about that time. Next week the Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas. But what are we expecting to see? That’s what we are going to go over today. We’ve seen plenty of leaks and while some of this stuff might get shown at CES, and others at Mobile World Congress, we still need to keep everyone informed of what will be the next biggest thing.

ZTE

ZTE has all but already announced the Grand S, which is their 5-inch 1080p device that is said to be heading to many markets in the world. With it supposedly coming to CES, I’d expect it’ll be coming to the US as well. Earlier this week, ZTE had a showing of the Grand S at their design offices in Shanghai, and confirmed that the device will come in many colors. But what else will ZTE have up their sleeves for CES next week? We’ll have to wait and see.

Huawei

Another one of the Chinese manufacturers trying to make it big in the US is Huawei. We’ve seen plenty of leaks of the Ascend D2 which is their 5-inch 1080p device, along with leaks of the Ascend Mate, which is their 6.1-inch 720p device. Two very big devices coming from Huawei at CES next week. Let’s see what version of Android they are running before we judge the devices. If they are running Android 4.1 or later, it might be worth it. Also hopefully it’ll launch on one of the larger carriers instead of Metro PCS, or Boost Mobile.

NVIDIA Tegra 4

Last year, it seemed like everything was running the Tegra 3 processor. It featured the 4-plus-1 technology, basically what that means is there are actually five cores running. There are 4 cores running at the normal speed, and a fifth running at a slightly slower speed to handle most things without waking the other more high powered cores. The Tegra 4 is also said to be able to handle displays at 2560×1600 and 1080p at 120Hz. Not bad for an improvement over the Tegra 3. It’s also said to have six times the power of the Tegra 3, so we’re hoping we’ll see NVIDIA bring the Tegra 4 to CES and demonstrate for us how well it works over their last processor.

Sony

The Sony rumor mill has been probably the busiest as of late. It’s been showing us some pretty good looking, and great spec’d 5-inch devices. Including the Yuga and Odin, which have now been rumored as being named the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL. And looking at the past naming schemes for Sony devices, the Xperia ZL will probably be an LTE version of the Xperia Z, which means it could be hitting any of the major US carriers. But most likely it’ll be on AT&T, since they have a relationship with them similar to Motorola’s relationship with Verizon.

Acer

There’s been a rumor floating around lately that Acer is working on an Iconia Tab B1, that will compete with the Google Nexus 7 (manufactured by ASUS). Now from the specs that we’ve seen in these rumors, it’s going to be pretty hard for Acer to compete with the Nexus 7 on those specs alone. Hopefully Acer has gone back to the drawing board with the Iconia B1 since those rumors and leaks and will show us something spectacular in Vegas next week.

Samsung

Samsung isn’t really going to announce anything major, but they’ll probably still steal the show. There was a rumor about a month ago that Samsung was looking to rebrand themselves at CES this year. So that’s going to be interesting. Samsung is also bringing a 5.5-inch flexible display to Vegas next week. Now what will be interesting about that is how it’ll hold up and when we’ll see it in their devices. Maybe as soon as the Galaxy S4? Let’s hope so.

ASUS

This rumor has been floating around since Android 4.1 was the most current version of Android. Yes this has been a rumor for that long. ASUS is looking at making a $99 tablet, possibly something along the lines of the Nexus 7. But the specs in the leaked benchmarks show me that it won’t be a Nexus since it’s running Android 4.1.1 and that’s four versions behind the current Nexus line up. Either way, a $99 tablet from ASUS is going to be huge, especially with their build quality and nearly stock skin.

LG

In addition to their new TV’s and Google TV’s coming to CES, LG is also bringing some ultra-high-resolution displays to show off in Vegas. They will be bringing all kinds of sizes, including smartphone, tablet, laptops, and 3 different TV displays. It’ll be interesting to see how high the resolution is on these devices.

Via: AHANDROIDHEADLINES