IFA 2016: Everything that’s happened so far

IFA 2016 latest news and hands-on reviews

Update: Sony has taken the wrappers off two brand-new phones. Its latest flagship, the Sony Xperia XZ and the smaller but just as premium Sony Xperia X Compact.

IFA 2016 is underway, and already the show has been jam-packed with the latest wares from Samsung, Sony, Lenovo, and many more.

The official IFA 2016 dates are September 2 to September 7, but lots of press conferences took place Wednesday and Thursday. Some of the biggest names in tech are gathered in the Messe Berlin, and we’re on the ground to bring you the latest news and first-hand impressions of everything that’s announced.

Read on for a complete company-by-company breakdown of the news and new tech we’ve seen so far at IFA 2016, and head to Page 2 for some of our pre-show predictions.

Acer

Acer’s press conference brought with it a number of laptop surprises.

The firm has announced what it’s calling the ‘world’s thinnest laptop’. The Acer Swift 7 is the first laptop to duck in under the 1cm barrier – it’s just 9.98mm in height, comes encased in an all-aluminum chassis and has a 13.3-inch IPS screen.

Alongside the Acer Swift 7, the Acer Swift 5 was also announced, a 14-inch laptop with optional touchscreen. And there was the Acer Swift 3, the more budget offering with an Intel Pentium or Celeron processor and 4GB of ram.

If convertibles are your thing, then Acer also announced the Acer Spin 7 (as well as the Spin 5 and 3). This laptop comes with a 360-degree hinge and can be used as a tablet.

If that wasn’t enough, Acer has also created a 21-inch gaming laptop with a curved screen. If that wasn’t enough, the gaming laptop also comes with a mechanical keyboard. The Acer Predator 21 X is one of the strangest, most wonderful laptops we have seen.

It’s equipped with five fans, Core i7, and dual Nvidia GTX graphics cards to make sure you get the best out of your gaming. It also has eye tracking, so it can watch you cry tears of joy while you are using it.

Asus

You’re ready for a Zenvolution, aren’t you? Well, Asus sure is, as that was the theme of its press conference this year.

The Android Wear-toting Asus ZenWatch 3 is one of the first wearables to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 chipset. This means that it has a 25% boost in battery efficiency and some nifty HyperCharge technology, which means you will be able to juice it up in no time.

As you can see from the picture, Asus has discarded the lozenge-style fascia and has made its new watch round – coming with a fairly standard 1.39-inch OLED display with a 400 x 400 resolution.

Asus also announced a number of new monitors and this rather stylish Asus ZenBook 3. We’ve already seen the ZenBook 3 but this was one with an upgraded chipset – it’s got Core i7 Kaby Lake CPUs inside. There was also the ZenScreen MB16AC which weighs 800g and is 8mm thin – which makes it the world’s lightest and slimmest full HD portable monitor, according to the company.

Bang and Olufsen

B&O has announced a brand-new patio heater … sorry, speaker. The BeoSound 1 is a premium portable wireless speaker that can be controlled with your smartphone and looks like a patio heater because it offers 360-degree of sound. It’s also got Google Cast, AirPlay and DLNA integration.

If you want a more sizeable speaker, then there’s also the BeoSound 2, which runs off the mains and contains three extra power amplifiers.

The firm also announced the BeoVision Horizon, a new 4K TV that’s a bit of a carry-over from the BeoVision 14. That’s not a bad thing – the Horizon will adjust to your room’s environment, for one, to ensure optimal viewing. It also comes with a cheaper price, starting at £2,495 (around $3,300, AU$4,355).

Unfortunately, it still lacks HDR support, and its stands are “minimalistic” (B&O’s words, not ours), but it should be an affordable option for those looking to get into 4K.

Fitbit

Flipping back to the wearables theme, Fitbit is making the trek to Berlin this year, though what it’s packing is no longer a surprise.

Just days before IFA, Fitbit made the Fitbit Flex 2 and Fitbit Charge 2 official.

Both bands house some exciting new features. The Flex 2, for one, can be worn while swimming. The Charge 2, meanwhile, is slimmer than its predecessor, though its screen has undergone a size upgrade.

This is the first major update for the Flex and Charge since 2013 and 2014, respectively. In our hands on Fitbit Charge 2 review, we found that while it’s an upgrade to one of the best fitness trackers around, not much has changed from the Fitbit Charge HR. Shame.

Garmin

Garmin looks like it’s gearing up to take on GoPro with the VIRB Ultra 30 action cam. The camera sports a 1.75-inch touchscreen, can shoot 4K movies at 30fps and take stills at 12MP and 8MP.

What really makes the VIRB Ultra 30 stand out though is voice control. Once it’s on, you can tell it to start and stop recording video, take still photos and tag footage by uttering “remember that.” You can grab Garmin’s new recorder later this month for $499/£449/AU$699.

HTC

HTC unveiled the HTC One A9S at IFA 2016 and we are a little underwhelmed by it. It has taken Apple’s cue of adding an S to the end of its last product but instead of giving its latest phone a speed boost, HTC hasn’t changed much at all from the One A9 and has actually dialled down the specs in some areas.

Huawei

Huawei came out swinging at IFA 2015 with the Mate S and G8 smartphones, plus pricing details for the Huawei Watch. This year it was a little more muted, but we still got a nice array of releases.

The first of which is the Huawei Nova. This is, according to Huawei, the ‘perfect Saturday night device’. That essentially means that it’s a mid-range phone that isn’t going to impress your mates but will last the night and it has a great 8MP snapper for selfies.

The Huawei Nova + is, you’ve guessed it, a bigger variant of the Huawei Nova, offering up essentially the same phone as the Nova but the size is pushed up to a phablet-like 5.5 inches.

And then there was the Huawei MediaPad M3 8.0. We’ve already had this device for a while and gave it 3.5 stars. The reason: it looks good, has great speakers but it’s not got much processing power so gamers should stay away. But, it is a good-looking 8-inch tablet that’s also nice and light too.

Lenovo

Lenovo is starting to lift the lid on its IFA 2016 announcements, starting with a bevy of laptops.

The company kicked things off by staking another ‘world’s thinnest laptop’ claim, this time for the Yoga 910, sequel to last year’s Yoga 900. At 0.56 inches (14.3mm) when closed, the Yoga 910 is technically the ‘world’s thinnest Intel Core i convertible’, but don’t get too caught on semantics. In our hands-on review, we find this to be the most impressive model update this year.

The laptop has a 4K display option, 15.5-hour battery life (for the 1080p model), runs Windows 10, and weighs a reasonable 3.04 pounds (1.38kg). It goes on sale this October starting at $1,299 (about £991, AU$1,716).

Lenovo also unveiled the Yogo Book, a revolutionary laptop-tablet hybrid that shunts the keyboard. It can run either Android Marshmallow or Windows 10, but ask for physical keys, and you won’t find any. Instead, there’s a capactive touch surface called a Create Pad that materializes when you need it. Plus, it supports a stylus. This means the Yoga Book can switch between laptop, tablet and a digital art tool, and you never have to press a button.

Pretty wild, right?

There was another hybrid on show, too. The Lenovo Miix 510 will appeal to style-conscious hybrid fans as it’s yet another lightweight device by Lenovo that oozes class.

The Miix 510 is a 2-in-1 hybrid with a detachable display that also hits the shelves in October, starting at just $599 (about £457, AU$791). A new Yoga Tab 3 Plus, an affordable Android tablet with a 2K screen, is also hitting the scene with a $299 (about £230, AU$400).

LG

With LG launching its V20 flagship phone on September 6 in San Francisco, it’s left many to wonder what exactly it will announce all the way in Berlin. Here’s what we’ve heard.

Word is LG will come to IFA with the third generation of its Flex line in tow, the LG G Flex 3. A PhoneArena report from way back in May suggests the LG G Flex 2 successor will feature a 5.5-inch 1440 x 2560 screen, a Snapdragon 820 chip, 4GB of RAM, 16MP camera and, most intriguingly, a modular design.

LG went modular with the LG G5, so it could carry that over to the G Flex 3 – and the V20, for that matter.

Prior to IFA, LG announced a new line of Bluetooth speakers that it will feature at its booth. The PH1, PH2, PH3 and PH4 models look to be stylish accents for any setting, though we’ll have to get our ears on them to see how they stack up.

We can always count on LG unveiling new TVs at IFA, and LG has said it will demonstrate three High Dynamic Range (HDR) technologies at the show, including Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) technology.

What’s more, the firm says it “will be the first to publicly demonstrate HDR technology combining High Frame Rate (HFR) with HLG content.” Able to reach speeds of 100/120 frames per second, the HFR demonstration will go off with help from the BBC and European Broadcasting Union. It should be fascinating.

Finally, LG also pre-announced new 21:9 curved gaming displays. We’re sensing a theme with these curved monitors (see: Samsung).

Logitech

Logitech has revealed what could be the most intriguing mouse ever. It’s the first-ever silent mouse. The new Logitech M330 Silent Plus and M220 Silent Mouse have made sure when you press down on the mouse, not a click is heard – even though the buttons still offer a ‘click feel’.

Mind. Blown.

Motorola

Not to be outdone by its parent company Lenovo, Motorola has announced the Moto Z Play, its cheapest Moto Z phone to day.

Thick, long-lasting and affordable, the Moto Z Play doesn’t miss out on the modular accessory train – you can even attach a Hasselblad True Zoom camera mod to its back for ultra-pro pictures. The Moto Z Play hits the US on September 8 for $408 ($17/month over 24 months) at Verizon, or $449 unlocked.

Panasonic

Although its press conference at IFA 2016 was mainly focused around its work surrounding smart cities and the connected home, Panasonic did include a couple of details about its home electronics offerings.

As well as teasing a new OLED TV prototype, the company also announced a new Ultra HD Blu-ray player, the DMP-UB700, which will be significantly cheaper than the company’s first 4K player that launched last year.

We can’t wait to see whether the player earns a place on our list of the best Ultra HD Blu-ray players.

Philips

Philips always loves to launch a brand-new toothbrush and other kitchen-based products but it did also wow the crowds with its very first OLED TV.

The 4K Philips 901F Ambilight set boasts HDR and an Android-fuelled quad core processor. Make no mistake, OLED is a big step for the TV brand and we can’t wait to see what Ambilight looks like on an OLED TV.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm showed off some rather important bits of technology at IFA 2016. The highlight was its foray into virtual reality. In association with Goertek, the company has created a VR headset that makes use of its Snapdragon 820 chipset.

Not only that, Qualcomm has promised to take Android Wear to the next level, revealing that we should see some big chip changes in the next two years. Finally, it said its new Snapdragon 821 chip will lead to faster and longer lasting phones, which is always welcome news.

Samsung

It’s been quite a year for Samsung already, one that was recently punctuated by the debut of the Galaxy Note 7.

But Sammy isn’t done with 2016 yet. At IFA, the company unveiled its new Gear S3 smartwatch in two variants, the Gear S3 Frontier and Gear S3 Classic. Here’s everything you need to know about both.

In our hands on Samsung Gear S3 Frontier review, we call the smartwatch one of the most capable and attractive active-focused wearables we’ve seen yet. It is the active version of the Gear S3 – a rugged smartwatch with LTE connectivity, that’s slightly chunky, but a big upgrade on the Samsung Gear S2.

The second iteration of the S3 looks more like a watch you would wear everyday. In our hands on Samsung Gear S3 Classic review, we noted that it was near identical specs wise with the Frontier, but just had a fancy new look.

Both watches measure 46 x 49 x 12.9mm, but the Frontier is a little heavier, at 62g, compared to the Classic’s svelte 57g.

But watches aren’t all that’s buzzing about Samsung. Thanks to a posting on the company’s Colombian website, we know the Galaxy Tab S3 tablet is very real. It’ll have similar qualities to the Galaxy Tab S2, yet outshine it “with some innovations”, the website notes.

While the post doesn’t specifically mention an IFA unveiling, it does say the tablet will launch to support the Galaxy Note 7 release in September. Though the Note 7 landed in the US in mid-August, it’s coming to other regions, including the UK, once September strikes.

Other rumors suggest the Galaxy Tab S3 will be announced on September 2, when IFA officially begins.

Other Samsung innovations planned for IFA include stuff on the home goods front, including its two-door Family Hub refrigerator for the European market. The firm also announced new curved Quantum Dot displays will be on hand, which we can’t wait to get our eyes on.

Sony

The Sony press conference has happened and as you would expect, there were a wide range of gadgets showcased, from brand-new noise-cancelling headphones to some Xperia phones to the PlayStation VR to cameras to already-announced television sets.

When it comes to new kit, Sony unveiled two new phones…

The first is the Sony Xperia XZ – its brand new X flagship. Naturally, we have already a hands on: Sony Xperia XZ review where we noted that the new phone is “a great premium handset, but not enough has changed here for phone fans to rush out and buy it on day one.”

What you do get is a new refined design, camera improvements and a return or waterproofing.

The second phone announced was a compact, and we break it down in our hands on: Sony Xperia X Compact review. Sony has always been praised for its Compact line-up and this phone is no different. We reckon it looks great, and is as premium as Sony’s flagship.

TomTom

TomTom released a bevy of new devices at IFA 2016, with the focus very much on wearables. The most exciting is the company’s first foray into fitness trackers.

The TomTom Touch is a rival to Fitbit’s oeuvre and while it might look like any standard fitness tracker, it also calculated body fat which is pretty cool.

And then there’s the TomTom Spark 3, this is a robust smartwatch for fitness gurus who want GPS, Bluetooth capabilities and on-board storage.

TomTom also launched the usual array of sat-navs, including a bike variant, and the TomTom Adventurer which is an event more robust version of the Spark 3.

Toshiba

Toshiba’s had a relatively low-key IFA, which isn’t surprising given its exit from consumer laptops and general retreat from the consumer market. The company did announce a new SSD series, the mid-range A100.

ZTE and Nubia

ZTE has announced the Axon 7 Mini, a shrunken version of the very likeable Axon 7. We found in our hands on ZTE Axon 7 Mini review that the is easier to hold in one hand than its predecessor and is more affordable. However, it won’t be available on all US carriers, which is disappointing.

Before ZTE made its announcement though, Nubia, a sub-brand of the Chinese phone maker, had a reveal of its own.

Nubia hosted an August 31 gathering, where it unveiled the Nubia Z11. The device’s 16MP rear camera takes DSLR-quality snaps, which show up on its 5.5-inch full HD display. It’s backed by a Snapdragon 820 processor and has options for either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. There’s also a microSD card slot.

The Nubia Z11 will retail in the UK and US this September, and be available for €499 (around £420, $550, AU$740). Or, you can bump up to a black-gold, 6GB RAM variant for €599 (around £510, $660, AU$890).

Withings

Withings, unsurprisingly, announced a new wearable, the Steel HR. The fashionable fitness tracker straddles the line between looking like a traditional watch while still keeping tabs on your health.

In our hands on Withings Steel HR review, we noted the company “has managed to create the first fashionable fitness tracker that packs in everything you’ll need to keep track of both your health and time.”

Unfortunately, it lacks phone notifications and comes at a hefty price for what you get ($179.95/£169.95/about AU$300 for the 36mm model and $199.95/£179.95/about AU$315 for the 40mm model), but if you’re looking for health tracking in a classic form factor, you may be pleased with the Steel HR.

More from IFA 2016:

Pre-IFA 2016 predictions

With the IFA’s start now rapidly approaching, we’ve got a much better idea what we might have in store, so read on for our top 5 predictions for this year’s IFA.

Prediction 1: Ultra HD Blu-rays will be big

When it comes to TVs, IFA tends to play second fiddle to January’s CES in Vegas where the majority of new sets are announced, but we wouldn’t be surprised if one of the big TV manufacturers dropped a couple more 4K TVs.

We’d be surprised if Sony has more to show after having recently unveiled its line of Z series TVs not to mention the TVs that were shown off at CES earlier this year, but it’s likely that Samsung, Panasonic, Philips and LG will have more to show off.

But we’re more excited to see what happens in the world of Ultra HD Blu-ray players.

Last year at IFA we had Samsung unveil the world’s first UHD Blu-ray player, and Panasonic and Philips have also recently released their first players, the DMP-UB900 and BDP7501 respectively.

To be honest, it might even make more sense this year than it did last year, as most major studios including Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers’s first round of UHD Blu-ray releases are just now hitting store shelves. There’s plenty more of these expensive, high-capacity discs to come later this year and throughout 2017 so we’re going to need a lot more players to deal with all those movies.

So this year we’re betting that at the very least Sony and LG will enter the Ultra HD Blu-ray arena to satisfy those of us who want our movies completely unencumbered by the constraints of 4K streaming.

Prediction 2: Ultra HD Premium will become the industry standard

Ultra HD is still in its relative infancy, and much like the early days of HD saw enormous consumer between the ‘HD Ready’ and ‘Full HD’ specifications, the current 4K market is full of TVs that don’t make full use of the new format.

The situation is improving, however. A standard, called Ultra HD Premium, has been decided upon by the UHD Alliance, but it’s still so new that Samsung’s recent UBD-K8500 Blu-ray player had to wait until two weeks after its release to receive its certification.

It will still be early in UHD’s lifespan come September, but we’re hoping that television manufacturers fully get behind the new standard.

The two biggest culprits behind the lag in adoption are Sony and Philips, two of the largest TV manufacturers in the world. Sony currently isn’t using the branding, despite both its equipment meeting the required specification and literally a member of the alliance that defined it, while Philips is currently refusing even to produce sets that meet the specification in the first place.

We’d like to see all manufacturers fully embrace the Ultra HD Premium standard at IFA this year, partly because reducing consumer confusion is always a good thing but mostly because additional features like HDR make TVs look absolutely phenomenal. Plus, it would be a shame to see adoption suffer because of poor communication and branding.

Prediction 3: No to VR, it’s just not IFA’s way

The whole of the tech world might currently be going mad for VR (did you see our coverage of GDC 2016?), but it’s unlikely that we’ll see it make much of an impact at IFA this year.

Most of that immersive gaming VR content is likely to come out during E3 2016 in June, Gamescom in August, or the Tokyo Game Show in September, almost any other convention coming up this year except IFA. Sony also has plans to run its own PlayStation Experience event later on in December where it’ll likely be talking more about its PlayStation VR headset.

That’s not to say that VR manufacturers such as Samsung and HTC won’t be present at the show, but their focus will almost certainly be on their smartphone offerings. (See: Prediction 6.)

Prediction 4: Home automation will cross the threshold

Last year Samsung announced its SmartThings Hub to connect our lighting, thermostat, security monitoring and other systems in our homes to our growing list of smart devices.

We’re not convinced that home automation technology is a worthwhile investment yet for anyone who isn’t a hardcore early-adopter (if you haven’t read it yet, check out this home automation technology is a mess piece), but there’s always hope that this will be the year that some of the more serious kinks get ironed out.

These kinks currently include a lack of interoperability between different home automation brands – Google’s Nest thermostat doesn’t work with Samsung’s SmartThings hub, for example – and a complete lack of any one single killer feature.

These products also continue to be horrendously expensive compared to the relatively cheap products they’re aiming to replace.

IFA probably won’t see any massive announcements in that regard (that will probably come at CES next January) but, after Samsung used it for their SmartThings announcement last year, others might see it as a useful event to make an announcement at without being drowned out by the scale of CES.

Nest has also recently announced that it has open-sourced the networking protocol (called Thread) it uses for communication between its devices. This should in theory make it much easier for other manufacturers to connect their products into the Nest ecosystem. Will we see a swell of companies announcing connectivity with Nest devices at this year’s IFA?

Prediction 5: Ring, ring! It’s a bevy of new phones

And, of course, no IFA would be complete without a couple of phone announcements to round out the show. IFA is the time of year, traditionally, when Samsung launches its new phablet, and we expect 2016’s event to be no different.

Along with a new jumbo handheld, we also reckon there will be more S Pen functions, a bigger battery, more power and hopefully some sultry S7 stylings.

Sony could also be poised to make an announcement at the show, and given the recent Sony benchmark leaks we could have a Snapdragon 820-equipped Xperia X2 with a 5.1-inch 1080p screen on our hands.

Then again, given that the Z5 was announced last year at IFA 2015 it could be that we’re about to see the announcement of the Xperia Z6 but Sony remaining tight-lipped on the status of its ‘Z’ line of phones, we’re not sure what form the new handset is going to take.

IFA is not traditionally a massive show for phones (you’d need to look towards Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress in February for that), but last year saw a couple of announcements, and we’ve got our fingers crossed that this year we’ll see a couple more.

Honorable mention: The insanity of last year

3D printed pizza, virtual reality gloves and a speaker rug all made an appearance at last year’s IFA, and we’d by lying if we said that we weren’t hoping for more weird and wonderful products to inject some diversity into a show that’s overwhelmingly about the big shiny tellys.

Internet connected trainers? Hover trousers? 3D printed 2D printers? Virtual reality dogs? Show us what you’re made of IFA.

We’ll see you in September.

Source: techradar.com

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