CES 2023 Day 2 recap: Sony, Google and the Ram 1500 concept

Well, CES is officially underway. The floor is open and hordes of PR reps, journalists and eager entrepreneurs are moving through the arteries of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Of course, even before the LVCC opened its doors today, there was plenty of news coming out of CES 2023.

Sony

Sony held its big press conference Wednesday night, covering everything from high-end cinema cameras and nano satellites to video game movies and affordable controllers. The company’s Project Leonardo controller will offer a variety of customizable buttons and other hardware in a kit designed for people with limited mobility. Like Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive controller, Project Leonardo reflects a growing trend in technology, particularly in the gaming industry, to better serve people living with disabilities.

Sony’s announcement that made the biggest splash, however, was that the endlessly delayed Gran Turismo movie is coming out in 2023. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the Gran Turismo series or racing games in general, but even I have a little excited watching the trailer. Cinematography in Neill Blomkamp’s upcoming film is shaping up to be quite intense.

And in a strange twist, Sony also unveiled its own car, the newly-christened ‘Afeela’ concept, which was born in partnership with Honda. The first Sony Honda Mobility vehicle won’t be road-ready until at least 2026.

AMD

AMD also made a splash with two CPUs and one GPU. The most powerful of the bunch is definitely the new Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor, which features an insane 144MB of cache using the company’s 3D V-Cache technology and reaches boost speeds of 5.7 GHz. AMD’s other two announcements focused on the mobile side, including the first RDNA 3 GPUs for laptops and a range of performance-focused Ryzen HX processors.

Razer

Another company focusing on raw power at CES was Razer, which announced two new laptop models, the Blade 16 and Blade 18. They’re loaded to the brim with high-end components like Intel Core-i9 HX chips and NVIDIA’s best-in-class line of RTX 4090 graphics cards.

But personally, I think the most interesting feature is the Blade 16’s dual-mode screen, which can run either 4K at 120Hz and 1000 nits peak brightness, or full HD Plus at 240Hz and 600 nits, depending on whether speed or resolution is more important at this particular moment.

Razer has also finally given us a release date for its Edge cloud gaming device, which will arrive on January 26th.

Lenovo

The biggest news dump, however, probably belongs to Lenovo. He announced two laptops, a giant tablet, an e-ink notebook, and even a “Think”-branded phone. The ThinkPhone finally brings some of Lenovo’s enterprise expertise to Motorola’s mobile devices, while the Smart Paper tablet syncs handwritten notes with audio recordings, so you can review a lecture and immediately see the notes relevant to that moment.

The most unique device, however, is the dual-screen YogaBook 9i. Of course, we’ve seen plenty of dual-screen concept machines before, but the 9i isn’t a pipe dream, it’s an actual product that will go on sale later this year. Lenovo will even bundle all the accessories you need to make the most of its form factor, including a folding stand, stylus and Bluetooth keyboard.

You can just use the foldable as is and pull up a virtual keyboard on the bottom screen, or you can attach the physical one to the screen and use the exposed part of the display as a touchpad or to display widgets. But you can also set it up as basically a dual-screen portable workstation with side-by-side or stacked displays.

Google

Moving on to the world of cars, Google was finally ready to roll out its Android Auto overhaul and started rolling it out to users. The new user interface has a split-screen mode and makes Maps easier to access at any time.

And speaking of Maps, Google is debuting a new HD version coming to the Polestar 3. These higher-resolution maps will be useful for Pilot Assist, but could prove essential for future self-driving features. Unfortunately, there is no word on when or if HD Maps will appear in other vehicles.

Stellantis

Last but not least, Stellantis revealed its Ram 1500 Revolution BEV concept truck. In the grand tradition of truly unusual concept vehicles shown at CES, the Revolution BEV has an augmented reality heads-up display, a folding steering wheel, some sort of 3D animated avatar that the driver can interact with, and will even follow you around as some sort of sad puppy if you will.

On the more practical side, it also features four-wheel steering and an 800-volt architecture that will allow it to travel up to 100 miles on a charge in just 10 minutes. Of course, you’ll never be able to buy a Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept. But a Ram 1500 BEV is supposedly coming in 2024 that will be based on this.

And don’t worry, there’s plenty more to come from CES—we’ve only just begun digging through the floor for hidden gems. So for all the details on anything you might have missed, check out our comprehensive coverage on Engadget.com or our YouTube channel. And stay tuned for more from CES 2023.