Mobile Nations Weekly: CES 2016 Edition
It's the biggest tech show of the year, and we were all over it.
CES 2016 was last week in Las Vegas, and unsurprisingly there was a lot of news from the trade show. It takes over pretty much all of Las Vegas — it's simply absurd. The world's biggest tech companies (well, most of them), descend on the desert oasis with all their latest wares. There's everything and anything on the show floor, and we were all over it to bring you the very latest.
So what happened? Huawei rolled out their new flagship, the Mate 8
Check out all the news from CES 2016!
Windows Central — The laptops of CES
This week we were at CES in Las Vegas, and while the overall show was met with little enthusiasm, there was plenty for Windows fans to enjoy. Microsoft took a backseat to let their partners unveil some astonishing new hardware coming out in the next few months, and one word is back: premium.
Companies like Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer and more showed off new Ultrabooks, gaming laptops, PCs and even a few Windows Phones. Plus, we featured Tobii's eye tracking technology that you can use for gaming and even in Windows 10.
Finally, to close out the week Microsoft published Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.63 to Insiders, and early reports suggest people like the fixes and improvements. And who could forget that Windows 10 is now on more than 200 million devices worldwide? Not bad for just five months.
- All our CES 2016 coverage
- Hands-on with the T-Mobile Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL
- Tobii wants you to control your PC with just your eyes and we show you how
- The full tour of the new Razer Blade Stealth 12.5-inch ultimate gaming Ultrabook
- Hands-on with the tiny InFocus Kangaroo $99 Windows 10 PC
- Hands-on with HP's impressively thin EliteBook Folio
Android Central — So much CES
The week was dominated by news and our hands-on impressions of devices from CES 2015. We saw new devices, product announcements, old devices that were refreshed and plenty of general industry buzz about where the next round of innovation is headed.
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The big stories can be best rounded up by our Top Picks of CES 2016, where we handed out awards to the top 10 products that were shown off at CES. There's more to see from a show this large, of course, but these Top Picks are the best of the best.
Outside of the direct reporting from CES, a few other things happened in the Android world. Motorola announced that the shorter "Moto" name will be taking over, alongside Vibe, as the primary branding for its phones, dropping the full "Motorola" in the process. Sprint is finally killing off 2-year contracts, Marshmallow still accounts for just 0.7 percent of active Android devices and Twitter is considering boosting the character limit on tweets.
- Quick look: Near-final Nextbit Robin hardware and packaging
- Hands-on with the TAG Heuer Connected — $1,500 of Android Wear
- Samsung's 'Galaxy' is growing far beyond Android
- Huawei Mate 8 review
CrackBerry — Going for a CES drive
This past week was all about CES and while BlackBerry didn't have much to announce that wasn't already known or otherwise assumed, their subsidiary QNX was on site to unveil and ultimately introduce a ton of innovation for the automotive sector by way of multiple advancements to Automated Driving.
- BlackBerry partners with Sharecare to accelerate consumer-driven healthcare and enable secure communication
- BlackBerry Priv confirmed for Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint by John Chen
- QNX showcases the building blocks for Automated Driving at CES 2016
iMore — Welcome to 2016!
2016 has begun! For many that means CES 2016, the event that starts the year by showing you what manufacturers hope we'll all be buying by the end of the year. For Apple, it means…. silence. Sure, there are early iPhone 7 leaks already, but mainly this week was about finishing what came before so we can all get ready for what's coming next! That includes new critiques, new concepts, new contributors, and more!
- Welcome to iMore 2016: What we're doing next!
- What iMore would love to see from Apple in 2016
- Six ways to increase your iPhone and iPad security in 2016!
- Five ways to get your iPhone, iPad, and Mac backups going!
Derek Kessler is Special Projects Manager for Mobile Nations. He's been writing about tech since 2009, has far more phones than is considered humane, still carries a torch for Palm, and got a Tesla because it was the biggest gadget he could find. You can follow him on Twitter at @derekakessler.