Love Pulse Posted January 9, 2022 Posted January 9, 2022 ESCES was supposed to be in person this year. The Verge and countless other outlets had hotel rooms confirmed and airlines booked. Companies teased cool gadgets that would have made CES feel exciting again after the muted all-digital affair of 2021. But COVID surged and CES saw massive cancellations. Some companies pivoted to digital booths, others canceled keynotes, and a few just withdrew altogether. CES even announced it would end a day early. The return to normal CES might have heralded never materialized. But something else happened: the news that came out of CES actually got us excited. For the last two years we've ruminated on what the point of CES even is. In 2020 we said CES was “a lot of show with not much very substance,” and in 2021 that statement was still on our minds. But after a very muted CES 2020, followed by the very weird all-digital CES 2021, we were surprised to find the show was still capable of surprising and sometimes even delighting us. We can't be sure what CES will look like in 2023. But this year we can celebrate the very cool, and the very weird, and sometimes the just plain goofy gadgets that had us nostalgic for former Januaries in the Nevada desert. The Odyssey Ark can be used in portrait orientation, which curves the screen above your head. Image: Samsung BEST IN SHOW: SAMSUNG ODYSSEY ARK It goes without saying that over the past two years, the humble computer monitor has gained a new appreciation in many people's eyes. It's what makes working from home comfortable and productive; it allows us to play games from either our preferred consoles or a high-powered PC. It's often the centerpiece of a home office setup. So it's no surprise that a monitor is what captured our attention at CES the most this year. Samsung's Odyssey Ark is not just any monitor, though. It's the combination of a number of trends in one package unlike any we've ever seen before. For starters, it's huge: 55-inch screens may be commonplace on TVs, but they're still rare for monitors. Second, it's high res — its 4K resolution is enough for sharp text (at reasonable distances) and highly detailed imagery. And perhaps most importantly, it's aggressively curved, wrapping the screen around (or, if you use it in the portrait orientation, above) you. It's not Samsung's first curved monitor — we've already seen multiple generations of the Odyssey G9 and its wraparound view — but it is the largest, by a significant margin. The 16:9 aspect ratio makes it less ultrawide and more ultra large compared to monitors like the G9. Samsung's demos of it in portrait orientation show it arcing above the viewer's head, reminding me of how a Tesla's windshield extends far beyond your line of sight. Though we don't yet know the price (don't expect cheap) or when Samsung will deliver this, it's easy to envision the immersive experience you can obtain with it, without having to deal with fussy VR goggles. I'll take two of them, side by side in vertical orientation, please. — Dan Seifert, deputy editor Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Image: Asus BEST LAPTOP: ROG ZEPHYRUS G14 Asus did it. It did everything we asked it to do. We in the laptop sphere have been giving the Zephyrus G14 crap for years about its lack of a webcam (and, therefore, its relative uselessness as a daily driver for many remote and hybrid workers), and Asus finally, finally heard our pleas and stuck a webcam on the dang thing. Asus also swapped out its RTX 3060 GPU for AMD's Radeon 6800S. Armed with that chip and AMD's new Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, it would not be at all shocking if this device was the top-performing 14-inch gaming laptop on the market this year with the best battery life to boot (the last all-AMD gaming laptop from Asus that I reviewed had unbelievable battery life and delivered the best battery gaming experience I've ever seen). Oh, and would you look at that — it even has a 16:10 aspect ratio, fixing basically the only other complaint I've ever had about the Zephyrus G14. I know, I know — we've given Best Laptop of CES to a freaking Zephyrus G14 for two out of the past three years (and the third one was the Zephyrus G15, which is basically the same thing but slightly bigger). I fully understand if you are frustrated by how terribly predictable we've become. But I'm dead serious here — this has the potential to be the best gaming laptop that has ever hit the market. Previous Zephyrus G14 models have spent months at the top of our Best Gaming Laptop list, and that's with a 16:9 aspect ratio and no webcam. Now, there are still a couple ways Asus and AMD could break my heart. Most notably, they could put some absurdly high price tag on this device. (Please, Asus and AMD, please do not do me like that.) Alternatively, these new chips could just be bad. I hope they're not bad, and I don't expect them to be bad. If they're good — if they're even remotely good — this is the laptop of the year. — Monica Chin, reviewer
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