Team TechRadar has been roaming the roomy halls of the IFA 2024 tech show, to hunt down the best tech here, particularly focusing on the tech we’ve never had a chance to see before.
There’s a really broad church of tech here at IFA, and we’ve seen everything from robovacs with fluffy tails through to a projector with a game-changing subwoofer included in the package.
We’ve discovered a ton of stuff we like, or that demonstrates interesting new ideas – but we’ve asked our writers and editors on the ground to pick their true favorites of the show, based on their experience on the ground. We can’t promise that all will turn out to be classics when tested under the scrutiny of a full review, but these are products you absolutely need to keep your eye on.
IFA 2024 Best phone: Honor Magic V3
The new Honor foldable might be the thinnest commercially available inwards-folding phone in existence at just 9.2mm when folded, but it still manages to pack in a punch with an impressive suite of cameras, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and 120Hz OLED displays inside and outside. It absolutely wild to hold it in hand and feel how thin it is, knowing it hasn’t skimped on power.
On top of that, it’ll only cost you £1,699 (unfortunately it’s skipping the US and Australia for now) which is a fair amount less then its equally well-specced rivals, so it’s no wonder we think this is the most impressive smartphone at IFA 2024.
If you want to know more about this award-winning foldable you can check out our in-depth Honor Magic V3 review.
IFA 2024 Best TV: TCL X11H
This is TCL‘s flagship mini-LED TV for next year, and it’s a spectacular piece of screen. It was actually revealed several months ago, but this is the first time we’ve been able to see it on display, and it looks just fantastic.
With a claimed brightness of 6,500 nits, it’s TCL’s brightest set so far (passing the mere 5,000 nits of last year’s flagship) and its colors look so beautifully bold in person, without coming across as over-saturated or unnatural.
It’s also got clearly fantastic control of contrast, with the 85-inch model pictured above featuring over 10,000 dimming zones, according to TCL’s specs. It’s capable of inky black tones without any notable blooming (at least, that we could see on the show floor) from bright areas. We were able to see it next to a TCL C855, and there’s a clear extra step up in color reproduction – so given how highly we rated the C855, the X11H looks very exciting.
IFA 2024 Best speakers: Kanto Ren
These affordable and super-stylish speakers are absolutely packed with audio tech, despite being fairly small and easy to fit in a room. You can wire in, as you’d expect for a pair of stereo speakers, but there’s also Bluetooth, USB-C audio input, and HDMI ARC so you can use them instead of a soundbar. They even include a Vocal Boost mode to tweak their sound for TV use, if that’s how you deploy them.
They come in several colors, but the beautiful orange finish is what caught our eye, and with the stark, minimal look, they’re eye-catching without being over-the-top.
Priced at $599 / £499, they’re ultra modern, ultra-useful, and very resonably priced. These are surely the speakers to watch for hi-fi fans on a budget.
IFA 2024 Best turntable: Technics SL-1300G
The Technics SL-1200 range has been going for a long time, so it would take something very special to claim to be next real upgrade over it… but this turntables seems very special indeed. With a brass platter and Technics’ ΔΣ-Drive (Delta Sigma Drive) motor control to remove even the smallest chance of vibrations, this is made for serious discerning audiophiles who want the great build and sound of Technics’ famous turntable range.
Even compared to the fantastic Technics SL-1200GR2, it should be even more revealing of detail in your records, even richer and more dynamic, and even longer-lasting. An investment piece – and it’s priced like it, coming in at $2,999 / £2,799. We look forward to seeing how it matches up against the best turntables.
IFA 2024 Best laptop: Acer Project Dual Play
Acer Project Dual Play is one of the most innovative gaming laptops I’ve ever seen, especially because it understands the needs of gamers who want a powerful gaming PC on the go.
By embedding a wireless controller into the laptop itself (the back of the controller serves as a trackpad when seated inside the laptop), a simple two finger press along the top of the keydeck to release the controller is all you need to switch seamlessly between a traditional laptop into a gaming console.
Even better, the controller lets you pull the right and left controls off the main controller housing, similar to Nintendo Joy-Cons for the Switch. This creates two mini-controllers that you and a friend can share to play co-op or competitive games together.
As a concept device, there’s no telling if a laptop like this will ever make it to market, but seeing it in action shows us what kind of innovation is possible in this space, and we couldn’t be more excited for the future.
IFA 2024 Best gaming device: Acer Nitro Blaze 7
Acer is the latest computer maker to get in on the PC gaming handheld market this week with the announcement of the new Acer Nitro Blaze 7, the first PC gaming handheld powered by AMD’s Ryzen 8840HS SoC.
As the name implies, the Blaze 7 will feature a seven-inch, 1080p touch IPS panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and 100% sRGB coverage, driven by the 8840HS’s Radeon 780M graphics, with support for AMD Radeon Super Resolution and AMD FreeSync Premium.
Additionally, the Blaze 7 will include a 2TB SSD for an expansive game library on device, 16GB LPDDR5x memory running at 7500MT/s, and will feature Wi-Fi 6E support. There’s also two USB4 Type-C ports, one on the top and one on the bottom, which should help make the device easily dockable, unlike other handhelds.
The Blaze 7 will run on Windows 11, which is a pretty terrible platform for a handheld, so the Blaze 7 will feature a game library app called Acer Game Space to help navigate your game library.
We don’t know anything about pricing or a release date yet, so we can’t say where the new handheld will land in the market, but wherever it does, it’s sure to have an impact thanks to its solid specs and design.
IFA 2024 Best smart ring: RingConn Gen 2
After its very successful Kickstarter launch the RingConn Gen 2 smart ring made its first public appearance at IFA 2024, and if you haven’t got it on your radar already it needs to be.
This affordable smart ring might only cost you $299 (£234 / AU$460) – or $209 (£164 / AU$322) if you get in on the Kickstarter pre order deal – but it promises impressive features including a 10 to 12 day battery life (depending on the size of your ring), “90.7%” accurate sleep apnea tracking, and integration with Apple Health and Google Fit to help with monitoring your health and fitness goals..
There’s no subscription fee either, so you won’t have to continually pay a fee to access all of the RingConn Gen 2’s features, something which can’t be said for some of RingConn’s biggest rivals in the smart ring world.
IFA 2024 Best smartwatch: Withings ScanWatch Nova Brilliant
Who said smartwatches couldn’t be beautiful? The Withings ScanWatch Nova Brilliant not only looks great with a sleek shape, titanium bezel, durable sapphire glass, and either a silver or gold finish, it’s also packed with a whole host of health features.
This includes the new Cardio Check-Up tool, an in-app service that offers a clinical review of your heart health from board-certified cardiologists within 24 hours – all without you needing to leave your home.
We already thought the regular ScanWatch Nova was and excellent hybrid smartwatch and its “exceptional digital brains” (which you can read about in our four-and-a-half-star Withings ScanWatch Nova review), and this new model looks set to take things up a notch.
IFA 2024 Best drone: DJI Neo
DJI unveiled its smallest and lightest 4K drone ever at IFA, the Neo. It weighs a mere 4.76oz / 135g and can take off from the palm of your hand to shoot stabilized 4K videos with AI subject tracking and DJI’s Quickshots flight moves, or 12MP photos. Seriously, it’s tiny, and thanks to propellor guards you can safely maneuver into and around tight spaces.
The Neo has been compared to the HoverAir X1 ‘selfie’ drone that we highly recommend, but what’s so impressive about the Neo is just how easy it is to get started and elevate your aerial videos and photos, not to mention the wide ranging ways it can be controlled. The simplest option is selecting your desired shooting mode on the Neo’s mode button for which you don’t even need a remote.
Alternatively you can pair it with your phone using DJI’s Fly app, or level up to one of DJI’s remote controllers and FPV goggles. Neo can even be voice operated.
Once you get airborne, the Neo can track you and stick close, keeping you center of the frame for aerial selfies, with six automated flight moves in its arsenal: Boomerang, Helix, Circle, Rocket, Dronie, and Spotlight. We’ve been super impressed in our hands-on time and you can find out more in our DJI Neo review.
The Neo is a unique offering in DJI’s lineup, and it’s also the drone king’s cheapest; just $199 / £169 / AU$299, or it’s £299 / AU$539 for the Fly More Combo kit which isn’t available in the US, but where there’s a Combo kit instead for $289.
IFA 2024 Best smart home tech: LG Self-Driving AI Home Hub
This is not first small, rolling smart home robot we’ve seen – remember Amazon Astro? – but it has the most personality, and is the first one that actually made us go “Ohh, maybe that’s worth getting”.
For a start, it’s so expressive – not only does it have great animated eyes, but when it’s responding or talking to you, it can wobble with enthusiasm or look gentle by rotating its handle on top. But with ChatGPT-4o powering its ability to understand and respond, it feels like something much more flexible and useful than other smart home assistants. And it self-navigates around your home, using cameras and other sensors to avoid accidents.
And make no mistake, this is a smart tool as well as a toy or companion. It acts as a smart home hub, and won’t just respond to commands, but can react to things – it’s possible to ask it to follow your kids around the house, and when bedtime comes, it’ll dim the lights there without being told. And the kinds can ask it for a bedtime story then, and they’ll get one that actually works…
IFA 2024 Best small appliance: Laifen Mini
The Laifen Mini is the latest in the brand’s growing range of haircare devices, shrinking down the Laifen SE into a more compact and travel-friendly form factor in a range of very cute colorways.
We loved the original Laifen Swift when we tested it back in 2022, praising its powerful motor, beautiful design and affordable price point. Now, Laifen has added to its haircare technology with a new child lock mode and a heat-cycling setting that shifts between hot and cool to help lock your hairstyle in place without you constantly manually fiddling with settings.
Out of the box, it comes with a travel case and a magnetic standard nozzle, but there aren’t further options for attachments just yet.
It’s fantastically lightweight at 299g, wonderfully quiet (at least, from our quick test on a noisy show floor) but still packs a 110,000 RPM motor and 19/ms airspeed that’ll see your hair drying with record speed compared to conventional hair dryers.
IFA 2024 Best robot vacuum: Roborock Qrevo Slim
The Qrevo Slim is a new robot vacuum from Roborock, featuring some seriously cool next-generation navigation technology and a neat form factor well-suited to finally venture into the dusty depths beneath your furniture.
At just 8.2cm tall, it’s even slimmer than some vacuum roller heads, an impressive feat that once felt impossible for robovacs. Its shorter frame is enabled by a five-year collaboration between Roborock, Infineon, pmd, and OFlim resulting in an innovative navigation breakthrough; “dual-light 3D ToF technology” forms “a high-density laser array with over 21,600 sensor points and a 38,400Hz sampling frequency”, combined with an intelligent RGB camera to find its way around your home.
What does that mean when you remove the vacuum-spiel? Essentially, it uses the same technology as EVs for autonomous driving, using its sensors to capture precise height and depth information and better obstacle recognition.
It also offers 11,000Pa of suction, a FlexiArm side brush and mop for getting close to the edges of rooms, and a self-cleaning dock.
You might also like
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/q2SnBq8NSv8RXiFzKuMGH7-1200-80.jpg
Source link
