IFA 2016: A complete breakdown of what’s happened in Berlin so far

Alright folks, so the IFA 2016 is scheduled from the 2nd to 7th of September and is currently taking place in Berlin. The event is of epic proportions this year. A whole bunch of tech behemoths including the likes of Sony, Lenovo, LG, Motorola and many others are doing their best to awe the audience through some highly advanced and innovative technologies that were being kept under wraps for this occasion. Lets take a look.

The IFA saw Sony unveil a new range of flagships from the X series that includes the 5.2 inch Sony Xperia XZ and a smaller device with a 4.6 inch screen — the Xperia X Compact, which were previously reviewed. Both the devices are quite premium and pack some significant camera improvements.

Taking the rapid growth of High-Res Audio market into consideration, Sony also showcased its Signature Series NW-WM1Z Gold plated Walkman, an extravagant $2999  MDR-Z1R headphone, and a complementing TA-ZH1ES Amplifier. All of the gadgets are top of the range and the noise cancelling capabilities of the headphones are pretty remarkable.

Meanwhile, PlayStation VR and Television sets also formed part of Sony’s retinue at the IFA.

LG’s Flex 3 is arguably one of the most anticipated devices at IFA 2016, considering that the company has already made it pretty clear that the V20 flagship phones will be launched in San Francisco on September 6. It is being predicted that the LG Flex 2 successor will pack a modular design and will come with a 5.5 inch 1440 X 2560 screen. The device is also supposed to pack a 16 mega-pixel camera, Snapdragon 820 chip along with 4GB of RAM.

Next up is the LG Instaview Signature Fridges — which are pretty awesome. You can simply touch the opaque surface of the fridge and it will magically — or technologically, rather — turn itself transparent, letting you scan whats inside it without ever needing to open the door. Intriguing isn’t it? Well, wait till you hear the rest of the matter.

The company is also collaborating with Microsoft upon a prototype Fridge that has a gigantic, Windows 10 tablet upon one of its doors. Read more about Microsoft and LG’s Windows 10 touting fridge, right here.

A brand new line of Bluetooth speakers is also underway. LG announced these sophisticated PH1, PH2, PH3 and PH4 speaker prior to the IFA event and we may finally know more about them soon.

And as seen in the past, LG never disappoints us when it comes to Televisions, and the IFA is no exception. The company will demonstrate its High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology combining High Frame Rate (HFR) with Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) content. The new technology is supposed to be capable of reaching speeds of 100/120 frames per second. The event has also witnessed a pre-announcement of 21:9 curved gaming displays.

The South Korean tech-giant has a lot in its bag this year. Since it already debuted its Galaxy Note 7 earlier, the highlight is upon the wearable segment at the IFA 2016. Samsung chose the opportunity to introduce the Gear S3 Frontier and Gear S3 Classic line of watches.

The Gear S3 underwent a major transformation when compared to its predecessor, the Gear S2. While the Frontier Variant of the Gear S3 is a bit chunky and has muscularly attractive look to it, the Classic is the perfect choice for those looking for something subtle to pair with their business suits. Check out further details, right here.

It is being speculated that the Galaxy Tab S3 may be announced at the event, later. That would be pretty exciting. Meanwhile, a two-door Family Hub refrigerator and a breakthrough in form of the new curved Quantum Dot panels, that are set to revolutionise displays, were also introduced.

Lenovo really set the stage and raised the bar at the IFA with its superb Lenovo Yoga Book. A futuristic device that can fit right into the fantasies of any Sci-Fi fan, the Yoga Book is pretty awesome.

One of the best feature of this device is its dual touch surface. While one is the regular 1,920 x 1,200 pixel display, a second surface also doubles as a touch keyboard where you could also jot down notes or draw using your fingers or a stylus. How cool is that?

Another great thing about this series is the fact that its not going to burn a gigantic hole in your pocket. A brand new Yoga Book with Windows 10 costs $550 and with Android is priced around $500.

Lenovo also showcased the Yoga 910, which is one hell of a power-packed machine. The device is not as futuristic as the Yoga Book, but makes up for it with some really intense specifications. This 15 mm thick laptop embraces a 7th-generation Intel Core processor, has 4K resolution on a sleek bezel display, USB-Type C and an advanced PCI Express solid state drive.

The price of the machine is in proportion to its features and the device can set you back by $1,300.

Acer’s entire focus at the IFA was on its laptop lineup. The company presented the world’s thinnest laptop, the Acer Swift 7. With a height of 9.98 mm, and with a 13.3-inch IPS screen, the aluminium build laptop is pretty sexy. We also saw, the 14-inch Swift 5, and a budget friendly Swift 3 that packs an Intel Pentium or Celeron processor with 4GB of RAM.

Acer launched another iteration. A 360 degree spinning Acer Spin 7, Spin 5 and 3. Acer’s attempt to rival the Lenovo’s Yoga series is turning out beautifully and the devices at first glance, appear to be extremely capapble., which we have already covered previously. You can go check that out right here.

Acer also had a surprise in its pocket for the game addicts. A 21-inch gaming laptop, The Acer Predator 21 X, popped out as one the most anomalous machines upon the IFA stage. A rather strange looking laptop with a curved display, a mechanical keyboard, eyeball tracker and a 7th generation Intel Core processor, the system promises to provide you with a super immersive gaming experience.

Oh and you also get a dual Nvidia GTX graphics card for stunning displays!

Asus revealed its wearable Asus ZenWatch 3 in the event. The smartwatch features the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 with the Hyper Charge technology and is superbly efficient from the perspective of battery consumption. The watch has a classic, round 1.39-inch OLED display with 400 X 400 resolution.

After the ZenWatch, it was time to look at an upgraded ZenBook 3. No one can deny the fact that Zenbook 3 is one of the best looking laptop in town. This iteration is even more special considering that it is one of the first laptops powered by Intel’s latest, Core i7 Kaby Lake CPU.

Motorola introduced a brand new budget phone at this year’s IFA event. Called the Moto Z Play, it is the cheapest Moto Z variant till date. The device also has a few significant modifications up its sleeve, such as the Hasselblad True Zoom camera for vivid and professional pictures.

The device is launching on September 8th in the US and costs $499 for the unlocked version. You can also buy it for $408 at Verizon.

Fitbit announced the Fitbit Flex 2 and Fitbit charge a few days before the IFA event, so we weren’t really surprised when the watch took to the stage at the IFA. Nevertheless, it was good to check out the watch in action.

Some exciting features of the device are the waterproofing in the Flex 2, which makes it possible to wear during swimming. On the other hand, the Charge 2 is slimmer despite a large screen.

On the whole though, the watch reminded us substantially of the Charge HR and the Flex variants that were released in 2013 and 2014.

The 55-inch 4k Ultra HD resolution Philips 901F Ambilight was introduced at the IFA as the company’s first OLED TV. The Android powered TV supports High Dynamic range, a 6.1-speaker system by Dolby  and encompasses quad core processor as well.

The company said that the Philips Ambilight system uses state-of-the-art technology that make for impressively vivid and vibrant colours.  With an extremely high picture quality, the 901F has been priced at $4,500.

HTC One A9 S turned out to be something of a disappointment. Those who were expecting huge software or hardware upgrades to the A9 were pretty let down with the device. If you remember, it’s predecessor –the HTC One A9 — was launched in India in December last year with a price tag of Rs 29,990.

As a standalone phone, the A9 S is pretty good.  The build quality of the phone is pretty remarkable, and the camera is delightful as well. However, the sound quality of the the dual front facing speakers fails to impress, which is surprising, considering that speaker’s are something of HTC’s forte.

Huawei mainly focused on the handheld genre this year at IFA. The company introduced the Huawei Nova, an average looking, mid-range phone with a 8MP front camera dedicated solely to the selfie enthusiasts. Huawei says its a perfect Saturday night device.

Huawei Nova is just a 5.5-inch enlarged version of Huawei Nova. What is with all these manufacturers and their sudden enthusiasm for launching plus and active variants.

Also launched was the Huawei MediaPad M3 8.0. A lightweight, decent device with a nice design and surprising quality of speakers, the tablet does somewhat lag behind in terms of processing power.

Garmin came out swinging with its new VIRB Ultra 30 action cam, that packs a 1.75-inch touchscreen, and is capable of capturing stills at 12MP and 8MP. The device can also record 4K videos at 30 fps.

The device also comes with an impressive voice control system that can let you tell the cam to start and stop recording, take photos etc. The VIRB Ultra 30 will be available for $499, hitting the shelves sometimes later this month.

 

Qualcomm has been delighting us lately with their VR advancements. Thanks to its association with Goertek, Qualcomm has come up with an advanced virtual reality headset that uses its Snapdragon 820 processor to great effect.

Its has also initiated plans to take the Android Wear line-up to whole new heights along with some serious upgrades in the chips that focus upon its upcoming Snapdragon 821 processor.

Logitech has done a great job with their new line up of silent mouses — or should it be mice? — this year’s IFA. The Logitech M330 Silent Plus and M220 Silent Mouse are pretty dope and could rival Jerry on one of his cheese stealing runs. The clicks are so silent that its nearly impossible to hear them and with the presence of click-feel, the experience is absolutely amazing.

After the introduction of Axon 7, ZTE brought the Axon 7 Mini to the table at IFA this year. Axon 7 Mini is pretty similar to the Axon 7 with a few minor differences.

A 5.2-inch, 1080 screen, octa-core Snapdragon with 3GB of RAM make up the device. Along with a sleek and crisp display, the sound quality of the device is also something remarkable. The dual front facing speakers are outstanding, spitting out high quality sound. Same goes for the headphone output, which is pretty outstanding.

So that is it folks, we hope that you liked our coverage of some of the most interesting devices and corporations from the IFA. We are keeping an eye on the event, which is still on, so keep checking this space for more updates on the topic.

Stay tuned!

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