I spent this past week in Germany attending some events ahead of the IFA consumer electronics trade show. IFA is the European equivalent to CES here in the United States. Lenovo sponsored this trip, covering my travel expenses. No additional compensation was received.
See my latest dispatch video from the show here!
My report consists of things I found of interest at two press events – one sponsored by Showstoppers that showcased products from 80 different companies, and a press event Lenovo held at a very cool industrial venue called Kraftwerks.
Showstoppers had a few cool gadgets on display, including some neat mechanical keyboards from Epomaker, a monstrous looking modular yard maintenance device called the “Yarbo,” and a bunch of other cool gadgets.
Pre-pandemic, IFA was always Lenovo’s huge showcase event. This year was the first time since the pandemic that Lenovo pulled out all the stops for a major IFA presentation. You can see just how extensive the presentation was in my dispatch video.
Lenovo’s presentation did not have any groundbreaking new product announcements, with the exception of a concept PC featuring a lid that automatically opens and tracks the user’s movements. But they did show off some nice PCs including a number of sub $1,000 ARM windows machines running with Snapdragon X Plus processors.
What was interesting was the fact that Intel is no longer the dominant chip platform for PCs – there was equal billing given to AMD and Qualcomm both in the keynote presentation and in product announcements. All three chipmakers now have PCs compatible with the Microsoft Co-Pilot+ AI specification that allows for on-device AI processing.
I was unable to stay for the rest of the IFA show due to the costs I would incur for full coverage. But hopefully this dispatch gives you a taste of what tech companies will be marketing to European users in the months ahead.
If you liked the style of this video I have hours more of it! See my dispatches playlist for coverage of CES, other regional product showcases and more! If you’re curious about what I use to cover these events I’m now using just my iPhone with a Sennheiser AVX microphone attached. You can see my set up in this video.
My next dispatch will likely be at the end of October for Pepcom’s holiday preview show in New York City. Stay tuned!