5 cool CES products you can get your hands on in 2020

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is always a showcase for things you might not ever get to use. 

To clarify, we love seeing wild concept devices that can range from quirky to transformative. But it’s easy to walk away from CES each year feeling like you’ll have to wait forever to actually get functional and affordable versions of what was on display. Luckily, there are also plenty of finished (or close to finished) products at the show and that’s what we’re here to highlight.

They might not all be especially cheap or practical, but these devices shown at CES 2020 will actually be out in … 2020. 

Samsung’s flagship phones for less

Image: zlata ivleva / mashable

Samsung occasionally makes really nice phones, but you usually have to spend around $800 on the low end to nab one. That said, if you want a similar experience for less, CES brought good mobile tidings.

Press in Vegas were able to get their hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite, which are budget versions of each respective  Galaxy variant from last year. Each phone sports a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen, three rear cameras, 128GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery. 

The S10 Lite also comes with “Super Steady OIS,” which is a new image stabilization tech for action shots. Meanwhile, the Note 10 Lite comes with its expected S Pen for productivity-minded users. 

The only real trade-offs for the handsets’ cheaper pricing are screen resolution —both have a 2,400 x 1,080 display — and storage, but other than that, these seem pretty comparable to their more expensive counterparts.

Here’s the thing: We don’t know how much you’ll be saving if you decide to get one of these. It stands to reason they’ll be cheaper than $899, considering that was the base price for the S10 last year, but Samsung hasn’t told us yet. We also don’t have a firm release date, but they’re due out this year. 

Lenovo’s tablet-like foldable laptop

Image: zlata ivleva / mashable

Not every 2020 product we saw at CES is cheap. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is an example of something that a majority of consumers will probably not be able to afford when it launches later this year. But it’s still very cool and worth checking out.

The X1 Fold, unlike many of the foldable devices we’ve seen over the past year or so, is not a phone … it’s a Windows 10 laptop. It’s a fully featured PC that’s shaped like a tablet, except you can bend the 13.3-inch screen at its halfway point. This opens up a whole new world of multi-tasking possibilities.

You can prop the screen up and use the included physical keyboard for a more traditional PC experience, or you can fold it to turn the bottom half into a virtual keyboard. If you want, you can also fold the screen and go split-screen with different apps open on each side.

Overall, it’s a slick-looking device that’s only undone right now by its hefty price tag. You’ll have to throw down $2,499 when it launches sometime in the middle of the year. Yikes.

TiVo’s streaming stick for cord-cutters

Streaming hardware isn’t the most expensive thing in the world these days, but cheap streaming sticks that try to do something novel are always going to be noteworthy. TiVo might feel like a relic from a world in which we still paid for cable, but the company is still around and will launch its $50 Stream 4K stick in April.

The gimmick here is that, unlike a Roku Stick or Amazon Fire TV Stick, this is built around the idea that you subscribe to a cable alternative service and need a device to accommodate that. Specifically, the Stream 4K integrates with Sling TV, as well as popular apps like Netflix and Prime Video, to put all your films and shows in one interface.

The marketing materials promise an end to app-flipping, which is indeed a real problem with most streaming hardware. If they can pull that off and deliver 4K quality at such a low price, this might be a decent thing to consider for cord-cutters.

One last note about the price: Though it’s launching at $50, the MSRP will eventually be $70 at some point down the line. Best get in while you can, if it interests you.

TCL’s budget-friendly 5G phone

We fully expect 5G to become a little more ubiquitous in 2020. It remains to be seen just how much of a difference it’ll make given the kinks we still need to iron out regarding network coverage and quality. But it’ll be much easier to actually connect to a 5G network of some kind by year end.

One good reason for that is you’ll be able to buy affordable 5G-compatible devices for the first time, like the TCL 10 5G. Last year saw the releases of several 5G phones in the U.S., but you generally had to spend around $1,000 or more to get one. TCL’s offering will come in at less than $500.

The 10 5G has four rear cameras, a fingerprint sensor, as well as a headphone jack. One of the things that probably keeps it so cheap is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 700-series processor under the hood, which isn’t the most cutting-edge mobile hardware in 2020. But, still, this could be a perfectly usable and affordable 5G phone in a world that doesn’t have very many of those yet. And that counts for something.

Samsung’s rotating TV for TikTok?

Finally, one of the true oddities from CES you can get at an unknown point later this year is Samsung’s new Sero TV. You know how more and more video content is presented in a vertical aspect ratio these days? Think YouTube and TikTok. Well, those types of videos don’t look right on a regular TV. Good thing then the Sero isn’t a regular TV.

The 43-inch set “connects seamlessly with users’ mobile devices to smoothly and naturally” display videos either horizontally or vertically. Yes, it rotates to show vertical videos. That is ridiculous, but there might actually be a market for that. 

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all we know about the Sero. It only comes in a 43-inch size and people might mistake it for a comically oversized phone in your living room. We don’t know how much it’s going to cost, only that it’s coming out sometime this year. One thing is certain: Watching TV is about to get a lot more silly.

Of course, this is just a fraction of what was shown at CES 2020. But among the deluge of concept cars, 8K TVs, and other far-off devices, these stood out as products you might actually want to buy in the near future.