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CES 2026 is almost here and this year, Tom’s Guide is doing things a little differently. Welcome to the very first episode of Tom’s Guide to CES, our team being your literal guide to the biggest tech trade show in the world!
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0:00
Hey guys, if you happen to be new here, I'm Kate and this will be my sixth CES with Tom's Guide
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my fourth time actually on the show floor. And for our team of tech nerds, CES is what we look
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forward to all year. Tom's Guide has been covering CES for years and if you've been with this channel
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for a while, you know how it usually goes. We publish something like 30 videos in a single week
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Hands-ons with TVs, laptops, robots, weird gadgets that may or may not ever come out
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All the things. And don't worry, we're still doing that to some extent
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But this year, we're also launching something new. Welcome to the very first episode of Tom's Guide to CES
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Tom's Guide to CES is pretty much exactly what it sounds like
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our team being your literal guide to the biggest tech trade show in the world
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That means highlights of the coolest stuff we see at the show, special behind the scenes moments
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some branded video partnerships, and thank you in advance for supporting those
1:07
They genuinely help us do what we do. We'll also have a big, exciting awards video, not sponsored, obviously
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plus some fun new series across TikTok, Instagram, and shorts here on YouTube
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All of that is to say, you're not going to want to miss this, so make sure you're subscribed to the channel
1:25
Now, let's get into what you can actually expect to see from CES 2026
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On the TV front, brands are pushing very hard this year, and RGB is the story
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RGB TV started showing up in concept format CES last year. Hisense showed it
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Sony teased what it was working on around that time. Hopefully, you had seen that preview on our channel
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But this year, we're expecting a lot more brands to throw their hats into the RGB ring
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Samsung had already announced its first micro RGB TV a few months back but now Samsung confirmed it be expanding with two more options which we will definitely have at the top of the list to
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check out at their demo space. Then we also had LG confirm it's debuting its own micro RGB TV at
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CES. Again, really looking forward to getting to check these out, spend some time with it
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Just from a reviewer's perspective, we really haven't had all that many opportunities to get
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some anecdotal experience with RGB TVs, and now they're landing here all at once. At a high level
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RGB TVs use colored LEDs in the backlight instead of white or blue LEDs that then get filtered
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through quantum dots or color filters. The result is potentially much wider color coverage, better
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brightness control, and this is the big one for me, much better off-angle viewing. That off-angle
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performance is something OLED has dominated for years over mini-LED, and from the prototypes I've
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seen so far, RGB could really change that. Will anyone actually be able to get it in their homes
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and afford it? Probably not, but we could be surprised. I will have some more details to share
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soon, hopefully. There are a couple of things I can't say quite yet, but trust me, this is the
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most important TV trend happening at CES 2026. Of course, we'll also see all of the things you guys
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look forward to every year. LG's latest OLED lineup, Samsung's Cutie OLED, and lifestyle updates
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And then we have Sony, which won't be at the show, but that has been the case for a couple of years
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now. That's just to tell you not to expect anything. So we're definitely going to see LG and Samsung
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but then we have the brands like Hisense and TCL, which I honestly don't even think it's fair to
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call them challengers anymore, given their increasing market share. Either way, I'm very
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excited to bring you their announcements from the show. On the computing side, CES is pretty much where we get the most laptops announced at once, maybe besides Computex
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For 2026 though CES will be no exception HP Dell ASUS Lenovo all of them will have announcements ASUS has confirmed that it will show the first Intel Panther Lake laptops which also means Intel has publicly said Panther
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Lake is launching. Otherwise, we're expecting to get full lineups of AI PCs across the board
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Let's talk more about the chips, though. We have AMD's keynote. That's going to be a big one
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New Ryzen chips are basically guaranteed. Intel, again, Panther Lake. And then we have Qualcomm
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heavily targeting laptops this year, which could mean even more Snapdragon PCs and possibly even
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the first Snapdragon X2 Elite or X2 Elite Premium laptops at CES. Also, Lenovo is doing what might
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be its biggest CES presentation ever at the Sphere. We were there last year for the Delta
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Keynote. It was just unreal, so we will absolutely be sharing updates from there across all of the
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socials. And yes, those announcements will probably have something to do with RGB
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On the mobile front, CES tends to be a little bit quieter. I think instead of a ton of phones
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we're going to be looking at the mobile category more in terms of smart glasses and like portable
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smart displays. But TCL usually does have some phones on display. And as for Samsung, they're not
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doing a traditional press conference this year. That focus is going to be on TVs, home entertainment
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appliances, but that tri-fold phone that has started to, you know, pop up, just saying
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you might want to be subscribed. Automotive and cars, EVs, isn't something we've been doing a ton
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of on the channel these days, but if you do want more of it, tell us now because CES should have
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some really cool stuff. The Sony Honda Afila car has a press conference scheduled, BMW is usually
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there, and yes, almost certainly we will see a few flying cars or vertical takeoff things that feel
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just kind of a little unhinged if I'm honest, but they're always cool to check out and they are very
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CES Smart home is also classic CES Cool robot vacuums cleaning tech appliances and you know we love a clean home And then this will apply to every category I already talked about We have
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AI. And this year, I kind of like that it's not AI everything. Like, AI isn't the big story going
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into CES. Everything just has AI now. I think it's been a nice change for the last two years. But you
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are going to hear the term agentic AI a lot more, meaning systems that don't just respond or predict
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but can actually make some autonomous decisions on your behalf. Computing is where this will really
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show up and devices are hopefully going to feel noticeably smarter. Finally, we had gaming. Gaming
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is a little bit of a wild card this year. CES, gaming, sometimes there are cool things, sometimes
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it kind of falls flat. There are basically no solid rumors about new gaming handhelds at CES
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which is slightly concerning given how much you all love that content and come to the channel for
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that content. Just kidding, kind of. You know, Phil, Paul, Tony, they love handhelds, so I'm
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hoping we get surprised. At the very least, expect some cool gaming peripherals. And if there are
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brands that you want us to prioritize, Razer, others, let us know. We are still locking in our
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calendars. All of our CES coverage kicks off January 4th and will be on the ground all week
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Again, this is also the first time we are rolling out Tom's Guide 2 and I can't think of a better
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place to do it than at CES. We'll have more to share soon, but for the new year, CES is going
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to be the place to be. So this is Tom's Guide to CES and we will see you in Las Vegas
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