Best of CES 2024: ZDNET editors' top picks
The ZDNET team scoured CES 2024 to find the most innovative new tech and the most exciting new products to share with our audience of professionals and tech enthusiasts. We have lots of lists summing up the best TVs, best laptops, best robots, best headphones, best mobile accessories, and more.
Also: CES 2024: What's Next in Tech
But we also wanted to give you a list of our absolute top picks from CES that we think will be most worth your hard-earned money when they launch in 2024. And naturally, we also wanted to highlight the best innovations -- products that you may not buy but are worth knowing about because they could influence other products that you may want to bring into your life in the future. So here they are.
Samsung S95D OLED: Best TV
TV innovation was everywhere at CES 2024 with transparent TVs, over 100-inch QLEDs, folding TVs, and 8K projectors. But the best TV of the show had a more subtle upgrade that will have a much bigger impact on the quality of the everyday viewing experience. The Samsung S95D OLED TV unveiled a glare-free display that offers the best qualities of anti-reflective screens while maintaining the intense colors and excellent dynamic range that make OLED the top technology for picture quality. We tested the glare-free display with an intense phone camera flash and were amazed at how well it dispersed the light. This means that you can now use this TV in the brightest rooms -- one of the biggest challenges for OLED TVs. I'm confident that will give this the TV with the best picture quality on the market when it launches this spring. It will likely cost around $2,500, until it gets discounted around Black Friday.
Samsung S95D
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid: Best laptop
We've tested and seen plenty of 2-in-1 computers at ZDNET, but there's none quite like Lenovo's new ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid. That's because this is the world's first 2-in-1 Windows PC and Android tablet, meaning as you detach the 14-inch OLED display from the keyboard, the device automatically converts into the Android operating system. On top of that, you can still connect the bottom keyboard portion of the 2-in-1 to an external monitor, giving you, essentially, two computers to work with.
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid
TimeKettle X1 Interpreter Hub: Best AI device
In the past year, we have seen major leaps in the AI space, which led to a boom in translation technology at CES. The TimeKettle X1 made delivers real-time translations in up to 40 languages, with nearly no latency and high accuracy, which I got the chance to experience myself. The device itself fits in the palm of your and includes a screen that displays transcriptions of your conversation and two earbuds that two people can wear for real-time in-ear translations during a one-on-one conversation. There are a series of modes, making it ideal for every situation you may need a translation. If you sync different hubs, it can provide real-time translations for up to 20 people in five different languages, aimed for use in classrooms and meetings. The product is already available for $699 on the TimeKettle website.
TimeKettle X1 Interpreter Hub
MSI Claw: Best gaming device
In what is becoming one of the hottest product categories in recent years, the Taiwanese computer maker's first gaming handheld impresses with the latest Intel Core Ultra processor for AI enhancements to performance and gaming, a more ergonomic design (with plenty of ventilation) than its competition, and USB-C Thunderbolt support for external monitor use. The LCD display falls short to its OLED rivals, but the gaming potential of this handheld should more than compensate for it. It will start at $699 and arrive later this year.
MSI Claw
Minitailz Smart Dog Collar: Best tech accessory
The Minitailz Smart Dog Collar offers the same types of insights a fitness tracker for humans would. You place the attachment on your dog's collar and on the app you will have access to data about your dog's heart health, activity, appetite, and more. The attachment can also track your dog's location, eliminating the need for additional trackers such as AirTags. One of the most important features is its ability to detect early symptoms of heart disease, potentially saving your dog's life. The Minitailz Smart Dog Collar was recognized as a CES 2024 Innovation Award Honoree in the Artificial Intelligence category since it is through AI that the collar can detect your dog's activities, such as sleeping, walking, and more. The Minitailz Smart Dog Collar is already available for $99, and it requires a subscription fee of $25 a month or $275 a year.
Minitailz Smart Dog Collar
Holoconnects' Holobox: Best innovation overall
The Holoconnects Holobox makes it possible to talk to someone via a hologram with near-zero latency. It's a "plug and play" system, so all you need to do is plug it in and connect it to the internet to get started. To be a hologram yourself, you need a white background that is well-lit, and then you can carry on like it is a regular video call. It is already available for consumer use, and we even saw Google use the Holobox to showcase its Android characters in fun and innovative ways at CES 2024. The price is not disclosed on the Holoconnects website, but interested customers can request a pricing list. It's very expensive and most people aren't going to want to put this phone booth sized box in their living room, but the idea of video calls of the future becoming holograms is super compelling.
Holoconnect Holobox
TCL 115-inch QD-MiniLED TV: Best TV innovation
The recent trend in Laser TV and ultra short throw (UST) projectors has spawned a wave of interest in 100-inch and 120-inch screens to create a more cinema-like experience at home. At CES, Samsung even unveiled an 8K projector that goes up to 150 inches. The challenge with these projectors is that they're never going to have the same level of dynamic range, brightness, or color intensity as today's best OLED and QLED TVs. TCL had an answer to that at CES with the announcement of its 115-inch QD-MiniLED TV. We were highly impressed with the picture quality of this QLED display in a private demo. It's an extension of TCL's QM8 series, which ZDNET and others have rated as one of the best TVs on the market. The TCL 115QM891G (the official product name) kicks it up a notch with 5,000 nits of brightness and 20,000 local dimming zones to drive excellent dynamic range and sharp colors. Pricing wasn't announced but it will likely cost around $20,000 and it will be available at Best Buy. That makes it an ultra-premium purchase, but if you have the space and the budget then you can now get a projector-level screen size with the benefits of the latest advances in QLED picture quality.
TCL 115-inch QD-MiniLED TV
Rabbit: Best AI innovation
What if AI assistants could do more than just give you the best search results and leave you to do the rest? What if they could book an Airbnb for you, shop for groceries online and checkout, or start a return for that impulsive Black Friday purchase? That's what the folks at Rabbit are touting with R1, its new $199 pocket device that operates on a "Large Action Model". Made in partnership with Teenage Engineering, the R1 may be the first of many AI hardware releases in 2024. The ball is now in the court of the world's biggest tech giants to deliver superior voice assistant experiences to match the capabilities of what Rabbit has come up with.
Rabbit R1
Sony XR headset: Best VR/AR innovation
Sony gave us the biggest shocker of CES 2024 in the opening keynote of the show when it partnered with Siemens to unveil an XR headset with high-end specs and an attractive Sony design. While this headset has the oomph to compete with Apple Vision Pro, it's not aimed at a general consumer audience but is focused directly on professionals, engineers, and designers to help them accelerate product development and create spatial content experiences that could ultimately run on Vision Pro, Meta Quest, and other headsets and smart glasses. This product will have the potential to save a lot of time and resources for companies in flying people around the globe or shipping prototypes to collaborate on and finalize their products. They'll do this by creating "digital twins" in virtual spaces such as Siemens NX Immersive Designer. Sony won't sell the headset as a standalone device, but it will be bundled with Siemens' platform and other software packages for specific industries. That will include an entertainment industry bundle that Sony wants to use to empower the next generation of digital storytellers to build immersive 3D experiences.
Sony XR headset