Many had hoped that the New Year would bring a return to normal, but the surge of the Omicron variant has forced everyone to adapt — again — and the world’s largest consumer technology conference, which wrapped last week, is no exception.
The International Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, hosted more than 2,200 tech industry exhibitors showing off the latest and greatest gadgets, which typically don’t hit store shelves until the fall. In the days leading up to the event, however, COVID-19 concerns led many — including HP — to move their showcases online, and prompted show organizers to drop the final day of the event and move more of its content to a virtual format.
CES 2022 had already been planned as a hybrid event, with organizers initially expecting 50,000 to 75,000 in-person visitors (estimates are pegging actual attendance at about 45,000) — a far cry from the more than 170,000 it typically attracts to Las Vegas each year. So, how did the most anticipated and influential tech showcase of the year overcome such a challenge? With technology, of course.
For all the ways the pandemic has changed our daily lives over the last two years, technology has become ever-more critical to everything from how we learn and work to how we unwind and manage our own health. Judging from the range of innovative products at CES, it’s evolving to meet our needs today, and offer a sneak peek into whatever comes next.
Here are five trends to watch from CES 2022:
Remote work gets an upgrade
Before COVID became a household name, work had a designated time and place, but now work happens at all hours and in all settings. Tech companies at CES offered a preview of the kinds of devices and solutions that combine flexibility and convenience with productivity and performance.
HP, for its part, announced its first Elite Dragonfly Chromebook — which brings together the best of the Dragonfly G2 and the collaboration-friendly HP Elite Dragonfly Max — in one sleek, portable package. The company also unveiled a lineup of redesigned EliteBook laptops built to meet the needs of our new normal, with bigger screens and aspect ratios, more powerful processors, and AI-powered battery management technology, all in smaller packages. HP announced a new EliteBook 605 series that it believes is “destined to be an IT and user favorite” in a more remote world of work.