CES 2025 Day 1: Crazy New Tech From Samsung, LG, Belkin and More!

Another year, another CES. CES 2025 kicked off like the last few years with a look at some of the exciting new tech from Samsung and of course, closing out the night with CES Unveiled. Now, let's just jump right into it. We'll start off with Samsung's first look, which shows a lot of updates to the TVs as usual with a new Neo 8K flagship. Now from the software side of things, we obviously are going to see a ton of AI features, just AI in general this year. And this is making its way into the home with features like Live Translate, which can offer subtitle translations for viewers to enjoy global content seamlessly. You can generate your own wallpapers. This was actually available on some of the Samsung phones and now you can do it for your TV so you can make things more aesthetically pleasing when not in use, and it can kind of give you the perfect image for your space along with some helpful AI personalization to make it easier than ever to find what you might be looking for. Now, I've always loved the Samsung Frame TV and now there's a new Samsung Frame Pro, which offers users the ability to the new One Wireless Connect box that can display whatever output you have connected wirelessly using Wi-Fi 7 and Samsung's compression codec. You just connect your Apple TV, your Xbox, PS5, soundbar, et cetera, anything that has an HDMI port or whatever it might be to this box and everything is sent over to the TV wirelessly. It's pretty sweet. You also get better brightness and contrast with the new Frame Pro. Now, obviously a big selling point for the Frame is the artwork and Samsung's art store has over 3,000 curated works from artists all around the world and it's no longer just for the Frame TV and the micro LED TVs, but now has been expanded across the new QLED and other QLED models for 2025. When it comes to monitors, the new Smart Monitor is looking more studio display-like than ever and I kind of really like it. The Smart Monitor M9 is the first monitor to offer on-device AI for AI Picture Optimizer so that it can better adjust to what's on your screen, whether it be gaming, video, or productivity apps, the settings will just auto-adjust. You also get 4K AI Upscaling Pro. It's 32 inches at 4K and oh, by the way, it's an OLED display, so it's a great productivity monitor and then you got these smart features for watching all of your content within the apps and again, this industrial design is very Apple-esque, very studio display and I definitely plan on checking this out further, so once it becomes available and we have a unit in-house, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss that video. Samsung also brought out its transparent displays from last year, but in different form factors and different variations of them and honestly, you can see kind of the appeal for different businesses, signage, whatever it might be and just things around the house, like this new Music Frame transparent display was really cool, I absolutely love this. There was also a holo display that was introduced here and it has some pretty crazy holographic ads that were being displayed, but you can't really tell a whole lot about this on camera, so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. It is pretty interactive and kind of in your face, but it's not really for consumer use. We also got new Odyssey OLED G6 and G8 monitors and Samsung has been introducing a lot of world's firsts here with the gaming sector, so the first 27-inch 4K OLED monitor, it's the first ever OLED screen with a 500 Hz refresh rate, you have 8K gaming on the Neo and then there's an update to the Odyssey 3D, which we saw last year, which uses a lenticular lens attached to the front of the panel along with a front stereo camera to provide a 3D experience. Again, this is not something that's gonna translate well on camera here, but it's definitely very noticeable. I wouldn't say that it's like in your face popping 3D, but to get this level of 3D graphics from a monitor without wearing glasses is pretty cool. AI can now analyze and convert 2D video to 3D on that Odyssey 3D, which is a pretty good upgrade for this year. Samsung also introduced this Premiere 5, which is a wild interactive triple laser ultra short throw projector that gives users touch features to engage directly with the screen on your table. Not sure the real world practicality of this, but maybe I'm thinking like the kids wanting to learn something or be more interactive with the games or content that they watch. You can kind of put it up on your kitchen table and then it'll project on a flat surface. It's a really cool idea, but still don't know how I would use this in the real world aside from what I just mentioned. Now, before we talk about some of the interesting things that unveiled, I did briefly stop by the LG showcase for 2025. And of course, TVs were a pretty big focus here, but I just wanted to note that the new Evo OLED, LG specifically wanted to point out that it's much brighter this year than in previous models, which was kind of always a struggle when it comes to LG TVs versus some of the other competitors, especially Samsung. Samsung has these very nice bright TVs and just QLED in general is very bright. And so OLED, that was one of the things and LG is working on it. And it does look significantly brighter, but also they have a new wireless connect box as well. The M5 TV here comes with the zero connect box that offers up to 120 Hertz for gaming outputs being displayed wireless to your TV. And it can even be hidden behind wooden doors in a credenza and still works seamlessly. Now you can tell here, they're both running one with the wired box from before and then the wireless one. And I don't notice a difference at all, which is pretty wild. LG also announced the Standby Me 2, which is this TV on the rolling stand that was out a few years ago. And I really love how versatile that product can be. And now this year, you can not only bring it around your house, bedroom, outside with the stand, but now you can detach it from that stand because the battery is integrated into the back of the monitor. And so basically it becomes a giant floating monitor or tablet for you. And you can put it on a variety of different accessories. There's one that makes it look like a giant iPad folio case. You have a few stand options or you can even hang it around something. You know, maybe you have a sign for a business that you wanna display. You can just go ahead and hang up your display there and then dock it on the monitor, bring it around, whatever you wanna do. You also get up to four hours of battery life and it can charge with a 65 watt USB-C adapter. And it can even be used as an external display for your MacBook. So a really, really versatile piece of display tech here. Lastly, at CES Unveiled, I'm gonna go through some of the products pretty quickly here, but we do have a few Apple-related accessories definitely targeted towards creators. Like this is the Stage Power Grip from Belkin, which combines a 10,000 milliamp hour power bank. And it also connects via MagSafe to the back of your phone and then gives users a nice ergonomic phone grip that resembles a lot like a DSLR camera. You can not only have a really great, comfortable feel in the hand, but you can control the shutter button for photos and videos. And it even has an integrated USB-C cable. This is a prototype model, but Belkin is planning to launch this in May of 2025. So not that far off. Belkin had a few audio products too. And the Soundform Anywhere really caught my attention because of the semi-open earbuds that have a flat form factor, meaning they don't bulge out of your ear at all. It can be perfect for listening to audio while laying down and trying to sleep. They offer 27 hours of battery life with the buds and case included and has ENC microphones in each bud to reduce background noise during phone calls. Lexar has this really cool kit for creators that first features this tiny USB-C SSD that connects directly to your iPhone. And then this little hub that will allow for a microphone to be mounted and connected via USB-C. Charge showcased its IceMag 2, the world's first Qi2 power bank with active cooling. And you can slap this on via MagSafe to the back of your phone. You get 15 watts of wireless charging, an integrated kickstand, 10,000 milliamp hour battery, and full spectrum RGB lights to let you know when you're charging and, of course, if you're actively cooling. Now, Targus and Hyper had some great new products like this new trackpad that is kind of specifically designed for Windows PCs to give users a MacBook-like trackpad experience. You get a full range of gestures and different levels of forced touch and clicking. And the software is so customizable that you can even set up four corners of different functionalities assigned to it, kind of like a Stream Deck. So you have the ability to just assign different shortcuts and then you would click around on each corner and it would make the adjustments instantaneous. Now, this trackpad is also usable on macOS, but you won't get any of these advanced features because that's kind of locked down on macOS. So it's mostly just for your alternative Windows device if you have one. There are also more affordable and fun-colored USB-C docks, one that can also connect to your phone via MagSafe, as well as your MacBook if you want to, or you can just use it as a USB-C hub for your iPhone. There's lots of versatility here with that one. There are some new Thunderbolt 5 and MagSafe enclosures for SSDs for your iPhone. In terms of random weird stuff that I saw at CES Unveiled, because there's always a ton of that, Atmos Gear, I believe, is the company that had these electric skates that can go 16 miles on a single charge and you top off at 18 miles per hour in speed. You have a controller in your hand that will kind of help propel the wheels to move you forward. And of course, if you run out of juice, well, they are just skates after all, so you can just skate yourself back home. And if the skates weren't weird enough, this is an electric salt spoon, which is apparently going to zap the tongue and trick your brain just enough to where it'll make foods apparently taste salty without actually increasing your sodium levels. I like the idea behind it. Too much sodium can be very dangerous, but I don't know how well this is going to work. They did offer demos, but I politely declined since that didn't seem super sanitary to me, but maybe one day I'll give it a try and report back. But if you're looking to cut down on your sodium, maybe you like to make things that are already salty, even more salty, this could be a great product for you. So that's pretty much it for day one. The true day one of the showroom floor here at the convention center opens up on Tuesday, but I'll be bringing content for most of the week here throughout all of the various showcases each and every day. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on all of those future videos and all of the new crazy tech from CES 2025. This has been Dan with MacRumors. Thanks so much for watching, and I look forward to seeing you around in the next video.