TCL is going for different with its new pro tablet, revealed at CES 2024. There aren’t that many premium tablets beyond the annual updates from Apple and Samsung, and TCL plans to make its new 14- and 10-inch slates stand out with their display tech, featuring its next-gen NXTPAPER 3.0. It's aimed at striking a middle-ground between e-readers and tablets. It’s not about them being sharper or faster, but gentler on our very human eyes.

The TCL NXTPAPER 14 Pro’s display features heavily focus on eye comfort, with a new VersaView interface that can switch between a black-and-white reader mode and the standard tablet views. The 14-inch 2.8K display (2,880 x 1,800) features the company’s new NXTPAPER 3.0, aimed at better reflecting, literally, how the human eye reads natural paper, but on a digital display. NXTPAPER is TCL’s display tech that tries to offer a tablet experience with a paper-like reading surface. We’ve written about earlier iterations found in devices like the NXTPAPER 11 tablet and even some of its recent budget smartphones.

The company says its next family of phones – no fewer than seven, including the TCL 50 XL NTXPAPER 5G and 50 XE NTXPAPER 5G – will also feature NXTPAPER 3.0 technology. The NXTPAPER 14 Pro is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8020 chip, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is fine if unremarkable. It’s truly all about the screen.

Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget

TCL says its NXTPAPER series continues to filter out up to 61 percent of blue light to ease the effects on users’ eyes. Version 3.0 is brighter, hitting 700 nits on the 14-inch matte display. A new Circularly Polarized Light (CPL) screen should also light up text more naturally, while being easier to read in sunlight. TCL claims this creates a reading experience closer to reading books in natural light. There’s also DC dimming, which should also lower flickering effects experienced on some lower-refresh rate screens. In tablet mode, the NXTPAPER 14 Pro can reach up to 120Hz refresh rates, and the new CPL tech also means it maintains legibility even if you’re wearing polarizing lenses.

Meanwhile, the Tab 10 NXTPAPER 5G packs some of the same display technology (NXTPAPER 3.0) but on a 10.4-inch, 2K (2,560 x 1,440) screen. And no dedicated viewing mode button. It does, however, feature 5G support.

To really make sure you get it, TCL also created an Eye Health Assistant to nag remind you to reduce screen brightness or perhaps not stare at your new tablet at midnight. The NXTPAPER 14 Pro also has a dedicated physical button for switching between three different viewing modes. The tablet’s VersaView UI means users can switch between a standard tablet mode and NXTPAPER mode.

Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget

The latter is an e-ink style (but not e-ink!) monochrome mode, which rarely features on devices headed to the US. However, this isn’t just the tablet processing the Android interface into grayscale. The interface includes stripped-down icons, like line drawings, that can still be differentiated from each other and a lot more blank space and white backdrops for reading ease. It feels like a concentration mode, which I appreciated. You’ve probably heard of the ‘hack’ of turning your smartphone system into black-and-white to make everything less compelling. This simplifies everything 2even more aggressively while ensuring that some content, like video, can still be played in full color. Swiping around the tablet, or using TCL’s stylus on the screen in both modes was fluid, and refresh rates seem much improved from the earliest NXTPAPER hardware

There are no prices for either of TCL’s new tablets yet, but the company has confirmed that the NXTPAPER 14 Pro will be coming to the US in early 2024. In the meantime, these are our reigning picks for the best tablets you can currently buy.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Until now, TCL has perhaps been best known not for the quality of its TVs, but its reasonable prices. This week at CES 2024, however, the company seems like it’s trying to reintroduce itself as the sort of premium player that can could compete with the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony. The brand just debuted a new 115-inch set, the 115QM89, that it claims is the largest MiniLED TV with Quantum Dot technology.

The TV is an offshoot from TCL’s broader QM8 line, which includes premium TVs in the 65- to 98-inch range. The new set brings over some features from TCL’s previous QM8 TVs, but it adds a 6.2.2 channel speaker system that delivers a more surround sound-like home theater experience. The mega-sized screen also has a TCL AIPQ ULTRA processor that allows it to deliver higher-quality and crisper images than any of TCL’s previous TVs were capable of. Notably, too, the 115QM89 has 20,000 dimming zones, which is important for a bigger display so that shadows and highlights appear more defined, making moody movies and TV shows appear more vividly on screen.

Aside from that showstopper 115-inch TV, TCL the company debuted the premium Q6-Pro in 50- to 85-inch screen sizes, with improved local dimming for a 33 percent boost in display brightness at 600 peak nits. It also added the QM7, another Mini LED device to its lineup — which offers better processing speeds and display brightness as well as overall image quality.

In TCL’s lower-end to midrange S line, the company announced the new S5, which offers 4K UHD resolution in 43- to 85-inch screen sizes. The company also says these TVs will be 25 percent brighter than the previous generation and will offer improved color depiction thanks to that new TCL AIPQ processor. Additionally, the S5 will include HDR PRO+ along with Dolby Vision for overall improved image quality.

Lastly, TCL introduced some new S and Q class soundbars. At the top of the line, these include the S55H, a new 2.1 Channel Dolby Atmos soundbar, and the Q85H, which offers 7.1.4 Channel Dolby Atmos sound and can wirelessly connect to rear speakers for what TCL describes as a more immersive sound experience.

AMD gave the first big keynote of many to come for CES 2024 and revealed a couple of interesting products arriving this year. Chief among those is the $329 Radeon RX 7600 XT GPU designed for entry-level gaming, going on sale on January 24th. The main takeaway is that it's designed for 1440p gaming and should be a solidly more capable GPU than the RX 7600, though we didn't see any benchmarks against its main rival, NVIDIA's RTX 4060 8GB. 

The other big news is AI acceleration for the company's Ryzen 8000G desktop processors. Those chips are aimed at folks trying to build capable systems on a budget, with the fastest Ryzen 7 $329 8700G model running eight cores between 4.2GHz and 5.1Ghz, while carrying Radeon 780M graphics. 

The new NPU (neural processing unit) will speed up AI tasks without hitting your CPU or GPU, enabling features like Windows Studio Effects which can blur your background during video chats, or media editing in Adobe and Blackmagic's DaVinci software. 

There's a fair bit of information, but we've made it easier by trimming the announcement down to just 7 minutes, while leaving out filler and extra details — so you should be able to catch up over a cup of coffee. 

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

For some companies, CES 2024 has started in earnest which means we'll soon get to see major car manufacturers show off what they've been working on. One of those is Honda, with its event live streaming on YouTube on June 9 at 1:30PM ET and features Honda's global CEO and EVP Toshihiro Mibe and Shinji Aoyama, respectively.

What we expect

Honda announced back in December that its new EV series would make its worldwide debut at CES 2024. "Honda will showcase the global EV series models and several key technologies that illustrate the significant transformation Honda is currently undergoing," the company stated at the time. What's unclear is how many new cars will be on display or what types of vehicles they will be.

The upcoming reveal builds on past promises from Honda to shift toward a more environmentally friendly lineup. In 2021, Honda stated its plans to have all car sales be electric or fuel cell models by 2040. The following year, it announced an investment of five trillion yen (about $35 million) into electrification efforts over the next decade. Honda also shared its aim that, by 2030, it will have launched 30 more EV models, and EVs will make up 40 percent of its models.

Tune in to Honda's live stream below to see its new EV series for yourself. 

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

NVIDIA had more news up its sleeve at CES 2024 beyond a slew of new GPUs. The company announced a bunch of updates for its GeForce Now cloud gaming service, including the addition of G-Sync tech and day passes for its paid subscriptions.

Cloud G-Sync support, which is coming soon, will work on displays with variable refresh rates as well as monitors that are compatible with G-Sync. GeForce Now will adjust the display’s refresh rate to match the streaming rate, in the aim of minimizing latency and stutter to deliver smoother gameplay.

If you're an Ultimate subscriber, you'll also have access to increased NVIDIA Reflex support on certain titles. Alongside a 240fps mode, Reflex (another feature designed to reduce latency) will soon support streams up to 4K resolution and at 60fps or 120fps to give players more options. In addition, Android users will soon be able to stream GeForce Now to their devices at 1440p resolution.

Starting in early February, you'll be able to check out the GeForce Now Ultimate and Priority tiers without having to sign up for one or six months out of the gate thanks to day passes. These provide 24 hours of access to the respective tier with all of Ultimate or Priority features enabled. Both tiers offer ray-tracing with Ultimate offering access to DLSS 3.5 and Reflex as well. An Ultimate day pass costs $8, while a Priority day pass will run you $4. The monthly price for each tier is $20 and $10, respectively.

Elsewhere, NVIDIA has revealed a bunch of high-profile games that are coming to GeForce Now soon. Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are the next Activision Blizzard titles to hit the service following NVIDIA's pact with the publisher's new owner Microsoft. Three Call of Duty titles hit the service in November. The Steam versions of both Blizzard games will be available at first, though NVIDIA notes that support for the Battle.net launcher is on the way. Capcom's dinosaur shoot-'em-up Exoprimal (arriving January 18), Honkai: Star Rail from Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse and Mainframe Industries’ Pax Dei are on the way too.

Last but not least, NVIDIA is bringing GeForce Now to Japan this spring. It's doing so with the help of Japanese telecom company KDDI.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Viva Las Vegas! I am contractually obliged to write that in at least one of our posts at CES 2024. So I’m getting it out of the way early. This year, LG and Samsung brought out the big guns, both revealing similar (but technically very different) transparent displays for assembled media and analysts to gaze at and wonder… why.

I’m being cynical, of course. LG, first of all, revealed a wireless transparent OLED. The 77-inch OLED T also taps into the company’s work in wireless transmission technology, reducing wiring needs to power alone. To ensure the display still offers black-enough blacks, a contrast screen rolls down into a box at the base of the OLED T.

A few hours later, Samsung revealed its own transparent display, but it used MicroLED. Samsung showcased the transparent MicroLED display side-by-side next to transparent OLED (oh, snap) and transparent LCD models to emphasize the brighter capabilities of MicroLED. Oh, and it wasn’t only bezel-less — it was frameless.

Lots of questions remain: pricing, availability, and once again, why? The onus is on LG and Samsung to make a case for what will be incredibly expensive displays.

Remember to follow along with all the big CES reveals (and insider views) right here.

— Mat Smith

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The Flappie AI cat door stops your pet from gifting you dead mice

Pet tech for CES 2024.

Engadget

You know what’s also transparent? A cat flap. Don’t worry, it’s also high-tech and expensive. Flappie’s AI-powered cat door automatically locks if your kitty tries to bring in its caught prey. The flap uses sensors and cameras to detect if your cat has a present — very dead present — for you. Flappie says it has compiled a “unique and proprietary” dataset over the years, which ensures its AI-powered detection system is accurate more than 90 percent of the time. Flappie plans to launch its pet door in Switzerland and Germany later this spring, but there are plans for a US launch. It’ll be $399.

Continue reading.

Samsung made a stylish Frame speaker to match its Frame TV

Hide Dolby Atmos audio behind your framed photos.

Engadget

This just looks… nice? Samsung also announced the Music Frame. It’s a wireless speaker that pulls double duty as home decor, like Samsung’s popular Frame TV series. There’s no screen here, though. Instead, you literally use it as a frame for your printed photos or art. There is no word on pricing or availability for the Music Frame, but expect to hear more in 2024.

Continue reading.

The Apple Vision Pro goes on sale in the US on February 2 for $3,499

What’s CES?

I love it when Apple just elbows CES in the ribs with its own announcements. The company says the hotly anticipated device will arrive in the US on February 2. Pre-orders for the mixed reality headset, which starts at $3,499 for 256GB of storage, will open on January 19. It’s notable as the first new major product since the Apple Watch, which launched almost 10 years ago. Anyway, back to CES stuff.

Continue reading.

JBL adds a touchscreen case to 3 new wireless earbud models

Sure, put a screen on it.

JBL showed off a set of true wireless earbuds that featured a touchscreen-equipped smart case at last year’s CES. It must have been a hit because the company is bringing the feature to three more devices. The Live Buds 3, Live Beam 3 and Live Flex 3 will all get a smart case as well as customizable adaptive noise cancellation, LDAC support for high-res listening, six mics for calls, wireless charging and multipoint Bluetooth connectivity.

Continue reading.

Waymo just announced it’s ready to start testing driverless vehicles on highways and freeways. The experiments start in and around Phoenix in the next few weeks and include the autonomous Jaguar I-Pace SUV. The company had already partnered with Uber to offer driverless taxis throughout the city, but the vehicles were restricted to city streets at low speeds. Now, these robo-taxis will be careening down the highway, bringing us one step closer to a world where we won’t have to sully ourselves with the task of driving.

Unlike the Waymo One service, which is available to regular customers, these autonomous highway tests will only be available to company employees and their guests. This will change when the vehicles have been on the road for a while without any serious incidents. Waymo says the data collected during these tests will be used to provide faster routes throughout the area, with a particular emphasis on Phoenix airports.

The company’s cars had already been allowed on highways, but only with a specialist in the front seat to handle any issues. This next step removes the specialist, for a true self-driving experience. Waymo says it has been incrementally ramping up testing on freeways throughout the past year to get ready for this move.

The company touts the speed of highway driving over local streets, saying that a trip to Sky Harbor Airport from the northern parts of Scottsdale will be twice as fast on AZ-101 compared to local routes. This is obvious and the reason why highways exist in the first place. Still, customers have long been unsatisfied with autonomous vehicles’ penchant for side streets and slow speeds.

To that end, Waymo hasn’t announced any speed limits for highway driving or if there are any maximum distance limits. Engadget reached out to Waymo for more information and will update this post when we hear back. The company has been offering driverless rides in Phoenix since 2020. It also has quite a sterling reputation when it comes to safety. Waymo's own safety data, as reported by Ars Technica, indicated its driverless vehicles traveled over seven million miles in California and Arizona, with only three minor injuries.

Driverless rival Cruise hasn’t been so lucky. In October, a Cruise robotaxi was involved in an incident in which a woman was dragged underneath a vehicle. There have also been reports that the self-driving algorithm had trouble recognizing children. This all led to the CEO resigning, multiple layoffs and, eventually, a hiatus of the service.

Exobrew is latest in a long line of companies to try and make homebrew beer as compact and beginner friendly as possible. Everyone from startups like Picobrew and Brewie, to major corporations like LG and Whirlpool have taken a stab at an all-in-one brewing systems with varying amounts of success (or lack there of). On the surface the Exobrew doesn't seem to stray too far from those who have gone before it, other than the eye-catching keg in a lovely shade of orange.

That keg is the heart of the system, it handles heating, cooling, fermentation and serving. During the actual brewing process it pumps hot water out the top and circulates it over the grains for the mash. When time comes for the boil, water is redirected to avoid over extraction. Above the grain hopper is a rotating dispenser for hop additions that drops them (in adorable little muslin bags) straight into the keg. 

Terrence O'Brien

The temperature controlled keg then cools things off for your yeast addition and you pop on the the fermentation lid. The whole process takes about four hours start to finish and requires basically no human intervention. The Exobrew is controlled entirely through an app and it downloads recipes from the cloud. Since its targeting inexperienced home brewers, there's a lot of focus on kits that come with all the ingredients pre-parsed, crushed and ready to go. But you can design your own recipes, or use recipes from other users. Unfortunately that privilege will be locked behind a $9 a month (or $90 a year) subscription.

The fact that everything from the mash, to the boil, to fermentation, to serving happens from a single vessel, with no need for refrigeration definitely sets the Exobrew apart from a lot of other systems (it's even self cleaning). But it also comes with its own set of challenges. However, it has features to avoid some of the more common beermaking pitfalls that produce off flavors: a clever system for keeping dimethyl sulfide from dripping back into your brew; a filter in the top of the keg helps clear out some sediment; and the interior of the keg is conical, with a small valve at the bottom to remove the trub (another form of sediment.) 

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

It's clear a lot of thought has gone into the design of the Exobrew. But it still has some tough hills to climb. For one, it's relatively large. While it will technically fit on a counter, it's not something anyone will want to leave out in the kitchen all the time, no matter how pretty that orange keg is. It also doesn't come cheap. $879 is hefty investment for a beginner, especially when you could probably make your first batch of homebrew with a $10 bucket from the hardware store and what you already have in your kitchen. And, while the Exobrew definitely makes things convenient — you can literally start it and walk away for four hours — it might suck some of the fun out of it for experienced brewers.

But, if you just want to enjoy the freshest beer you possibly can, have little interest in getting your hands dirty and have some money to burn, pre-orders for the Exobrew are open now. The company is asking for a downpayment of $165, with the rest due when manufacturing commences. Production units are expected to ship sometime in the first quarter of the year. 

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Team Engadget is on the ground at CES 2024 to bring you all the biggest (and strangest) tech news from Las Vegas this week. To help make that happen, our editors and reporters need to keep their phone and laptop batteries topped up, and that's where power banks come in. While you might not be running around the showfloor at a convention center, you may need to juice up your devices while you're on the go too. As such, there's some good news for you, since many of Anker's power banks and charging accessories are on sale for up to 43 percent off.

Those with an iPhone may be interested in picking up the Anker 622 Magnetic Battery, which can charge MagSafe-compatible devices by attaching it to the rear. The device also supports USB-C charging. This charger has dropped to $40, which is $30 off the regular price and a record low.

This gizmo has a handy PopSockets grip, which should make it easier for many folks to hold their iPhone while it's charging. It can also act as a stand, so you can prop up your phone to watch videos or play games while topping up the battery. The 622 has a capacity of 5,000mAh, which Anker claims will provide your phone with up to 17 hours of extra use.

Next up, we have Anker's 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe charging stand, which has dropped to $112.46. That's also a record low as it's nearly $38 off the regular price of $150.

This is a very handy piece of travel gear as it will let you charge your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods all at the same time. The top of the cube tilts open so you can comfortably watch videos on your iPhone while it's charging via MagSafe. The Cube will charge your phone at up to 15W (it comes with a 30W USB-C charger). Anker also notes that the Cube can fully charge an Apple Watch Series 8 in around 70 minutes.

Meanwhile, those looking for a USB-C cable with a high power throughput (likely for laptop use) may be interested in picking up a two-pack for $15. The dual six-foot USB-C to USB-C cables usually cost $23, and this marks another record low.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Mojawa, maker of bone-conduction headphones, has turned up to CES 2024 in Las Vegas with its new HaptiFit Terra. Unlike many other bone-conduction bands, it comes with a built-in AI sports trainer that, the company promises, will help you meet your goals. The AI can cook up custom exercise plans and tracks your heart rate, step count, pace, calories burned and distance. If you’re a swimmer, it’ll also monitor your swimming lap and distance, offering haptic feedback to keep you aware of how you’re doing.

HaptiFit Terra boasts clear, dynamic sound with magnetically-levitated bass with an elegant design. The band also packs glowing lights that’ll glow when you’re running the darkness and warn you if your heart rate gets too high. And the haptic guidance will buzz you to let you know how you’re doing and also offer 3D pressure-sensitive controls for fine-grain control on the go. With 32GB of on-board storage and eight hours of battery life, the company hopes you’ll have little reason to bring your phone along for your workout.

The hardware is available to pre-order today and, should you order one now, you’ll get a fairly hefty early bird discount. HaptiFit Terra will set you back $200 now but, if you shilly-shally until it releases in March, you’ll have to pay an extra hundred in penance for delaying.

If there’s a downside to this, it’s that Mojawa is treading a path that plenty of companies have already wandered down with only moderate success. After all, Vi from 2017 offered AI-infused audio commentary while you ran around wearing its neckband earphones. Even earlier, SMS Audio, in partnership with Intel, boasted of dynamic fitness coaching from inside its wired earbuds. Hopefully MoJawa can make a bigger splash where those other names didn't. 

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.