The Morning After: What to anticipate at CES 2026
CES 2026 is proper across the nook, and the pre-show hype cycle/ early reveals recommend, sure, there’s going to be an terrible lot of AI-powered insert-product-category-here alongside, fortunately, some main bulletins from the likes of Intel, Sony and NVIDIA.
Intel is lastly unveiling its Panther Lake (Core Extremely Collection 3) chips. The primary chips constructed on Intel’s 2nm course of may provide a 50 p.c efficiency enhance, which is sorely wanted amid intense competitors. NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang is taking the stage for a keynote anticipated to characteristic quite a lot of AI hype, whereas AMD’s Lisa Su will seemingly counter with new Ryzen 9000-series chips and the newest on AI upscaling tech.
LG
Over time, CES has persistently been the present for TV innovation and heady next-gen shows. This 12 months, we’ll be speaking lots about Micro RGB. LG is introducing a brand new Micro RGB Evo panel with over 1,000 dimming zones, whereas Samsung plans to launch a full vary of Micro RGB TVs from 55 inches to 115 inches. In 2025, Sony launched a brand new RGB LED panel that makes use of particular person Mini LED backlights in pink, inexperienced and blue to provide even brighter, extra correct colours. The corporate has trademarked “True RGB,” which may change into what Sony calls its spin on RGB shows.
We’ll be overlaying all of the keynotes, press conferences and large reveals in particular person. And figuring which of the 100s of AI-branded gadgets and devices are value reporting on.
I’m additionally taking bets on probably the most area of interest celeb look/endorsement at CES 2026. We’ve seen 50 Cent, Massive Fowl, Martha Stewart, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Guillermo del Toro, Justin Bieber and can.i.am (a number of occasions), so who will be part of this pantheon of stars?
— Mat Smith
The opposite huge tales this morning
The Music Studio 5 and seven might be on show at CES 2026.
Samsung
It isn’t simply TVs with Samsung. The corporate has already teased a pair of latest understated audio system. Probably impressed by the Samsung Body, the brand new Wi-Fi audio system, known as the Music Studio 5 and seven, mix into your front room. The Music Studio 5 has a four-inch woofer and twin tweeters, with a built-in waveguide to ship higher sound. The Music Studio 7 comes with a 3.1.1-channel spatial audio with top-, front-, left- and right-firing audio system. No costs but. Anticipate to listen to extra at CES itself or as soon as the audio system arrive in shops. And because the press picture above suggests, we will not wait to sit down stoically in entrance of 1, with a glass of water (?).
And a 1-inch sensor, 200MP telephoto digicam and three,500 nit show.
Xiaomi
Xiaomi’s newest smartphone is as soon as once more a spec beast. It includes a 1-inch sensor 50MP f/1.67 major digicam and 1/1.4-inch 200MP periscope telephoto digicam. And it additionally has an attention-grabbing new mechanical characteristic: a guide zoom ring. This surrounds the rear digicam unit.
Each the common Xiaomi 17 Extremely and Leica version include a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC with as much as 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of UFS 4.1 storage, together with a 6.9-inch 120Hz AMOLED show that may hit as much as 3,500 nits of peak brightness.
However the digicam options are the standout components. The 17 Extremely by Leica provides some very, properly, Leica touches: a two-tone end, pink dot standing image on the entrance, textured edges and movie simulations, like Leica’s Monopan 50 black and white. Xiaomi says the zoom ring “[eliminates] the necessity for tedious display faucets… and may detect displacements as small as 0.03mm.” It can be reprogrammed for guide focus.
Xiaomi’s 17 Extremely by Leica and the common 17 Extremely begin at CNY 7,999 ($1,140) and CNY 6,999 ($995), on par with the newest high-end Pixel 10s and Galaxy S25s.
A Google assist web page in Hindi says the characteristic is ‘regularly rolling out to all customers.’
A Google assist web page in Hindi signifies the flexibility to vary your Gmail tackle is likely to be coming. The characteristic would will let you change your present @gmail.com tackle with one other. Your outdated tackle would stay lively as an alias on the account, and all of your knowledge would stick round, unaffected. The assist web page (translated) says “the flexibility to vary your Google Account e mail tackle is regularly rolling out to all customers.”