20 standout devices from CES 2013

LAS VEGAS—We’ve seen many gadgets, gizmos, and other tech marvels this week. Some are awesome: 4K TVs, gyroscopic cameras, and new kinds of gaming consoles. (Many were uninspiring but we won’t dwell on the negative here.)

So without further ado, here are 20 tech products that intrigued us at CES 2013. Enjoy.

Click on to see the best of the best.

A mobile gaming device dedicated for the road trip that lasts for 10 hours with full-fledged buttons and without the boring phone extras. What more do you need to be excited about?

The device, called “Project Shield,” resembles an oversized gaming controller with a fold-up flat-panel display on top and works in combination with software in a client device.

Project Shield holds the promise of delivering high-quality computer graphics and gaming on devices with relatively modest graphics processing ability, according to Nvidia.

More info | Price not set

The “big game” never looked so good on such a big screen. At 85 inches, the U9 manages to beat the competition by a whole inch (which is hard to tell at that size). What’s more interesting is this giant HDTV’s new “Timeless Gallery” frame design.

The frame is simple, yet elegant, and still removable in case you wanted to mount this movie-screen wannabe to a wall. This may be the Ultra HD (4K) resolution TV we’ve been waiting for. Unfortunately it’s tough to tell how long we will have to save our pennies without a price tag.

More info | Price not set

Anyone who’s had the chance to use the HTC Droid DNA knows just how impressive an ultra-high resolution display can be. Enter the Xperia Z from Sony, which boasts an even sharper screen than the DNA.

While the 5-inch 1920 pixel-by-1080-pixel display could be enough to sell most pixel peepers, the Xperia Z’s 13-megapixel camera also impressed, and the company says the phone can even survive being submerged in water for up to 30 minutes.

More Info | Price not set

4k HDTV may be the big thing at CES, but what will come after that? How does 8k sound? Sharp’s 8k prototype has 16 times the pixels of a standard HDTV you can buy today. Insanity.

Considering 4k HDTVs aren’t quite here yet, and the fact that there’s no widely available content higher than 1080p, 8k TVs are probably a long way off. Still, it’s fun to look ahead and imagine what might be to come.

More info | Price not available

Razer looks to be taking gaming on the go to the extreme, and surprise, it’s available now!

Razer is pushing its Edge as the world’s most powerful PC gaming tablet and, for the moment, it probably is. This gizmo has components, options, and ports galore, as well as some nifty keyboard and docking stations.

One thing is for sure: this isn’t your daddy’s Gameboy…

More info | $999 for basic model; $1300 for Pro model

After testing a prototype version of the Oculus Rift virtual reality device we came away impressed, intrigued, and a little disoriented.

There’s a sensor package strapped to the front of the Oculus Rift headset that includes a gyrometer, accelerometer, and magnetometer and, just like your phone, the headset uses those sensors to measure how your head is moving in three dimensions.

That data is piped back into the control board and used to process how your character is moving in 3D space, which is then rendered on a 7-inch 720-pixel LCD display that you watch through two lenses (one over each eye).

They work in tandem to create a stereoscopic 3D image in real time with almost no noticeable latency.

More Info | Price not set

We don’t quite know too much about what’s in this little black box, but we know it could be huge for blending PC and console gaming.

Here’s what we know so far: The company is working on a mini-PC that’s small enough to fit in your hand, yet powerful enough to play mid-level PC games on an HD display.

The Piston’s cost and components are currently classified, but we know the X7A crams a quad-core AMD APU, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 32GB SSD inside a case that’s just over four inches long and three inches tall.

More info | Price not set

CES saw some major announcements from SOC (system-on-a-chip) heavyweights. Nvidia kicked things off with the announcement of the Tegra 4. Qualcomm announced its updated Snapdragon 800 chip, and Samsung revealed its Exynos 5.

Both the Tegra and Snapdragon come in 4-core varieties, while the Exynos will be available with an unpredicted 8 cores.

These chips promise 4K video supports and console-quality graphics for the next generation of phones and tablets.

More Info | Price not set

4K is the buzz phrase at CES this year, and it looks like this tablet wants to catch the wave.

Panasonic’s 20-inch 4K prototype tablet runs Windows 8, rocks an Intel Core i5 processor, and is equipped with a front-facing camera. Not a whole lot is known other than the basics at the moment, but there is word that the battery could last about two hours on the go.

More info | Price not set

With all those New Year’s resolutions, the Fitbug Orb manages to pique some interests. And, at only $50, you can’t really go wrong.

Fitbug aims to bring the cost of fitness trackers down with its Fitbug Orb tracker. The tiny little pill-shaped device uses an accelerometer to track steps and “aerobic steps” (steps where you’re taking a more intense stride, like when you’re running).

It will even track your sleep if you wear it to bed, letting you see when and how often you wake up overnight.

More info | $50

Though it looks a bit menacing, the Asus Qube aims to hook you up with Google TV, which includes access to services like Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and HBO Go.

You’ll also get a remote with the Qube that features a QWERTY keyboard and responds to gestures and voice commands.

More Info | Price not set

Chinese company Haier’s conductive charging wireless blender was pretty impressive. Just place the blender’s electric transmitter underneath your countertop and, just like a laptop charges with conductive charging mats, the blender will charge whenever it’s sitting on the counter above the transmitter.

More Info | Price not set

If you’ve ever wanted to rip apart your keyboard and mod it to suit your needs, the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 gaming keyboard from Mad Catz is right up your alley.

The S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 has staked its claim as the ultimate DIY keyboard, letting you rip off practically every component down to the keys to be rebuilt any way you see fit.

Mad Catz even makes a LCD touchscreen attachment called the V.E.N.O.M. that lets you do things like launch programs, run custom keyboard macros, and playback media.

More Info | $300

Take a set of 3D glasses and a 3D mouse and you’ve got Leonar3do, a desktop virtual reality kit. That mouse, called the Go Bird, lets you interact, touch, modify, and feel in 3D, while the 3D glasses will also track your head movement.

Used for modeling software, developing applications, the Leonar3do system can also replace the mouse with a smartphone; it also can interact with 3D TVs.

More Info | Price not set

We’ve been watching TV all wrong. Why watch our favorite shows and movies on a boring flat pane when we can watch it on a stylish, immersive curved screen?

LG says the EA9800 has one of the industry’s first curved screens the entire surface is equidistant from the viewer’s eyes (Samsung also announced one at CES 2013). Don’t worry about odd distortion or losing detail on the edges, because this TV is supposed to work with your eyes to deliver some sweet visual media goodness.

More info | Price not set

The darling of Kickstarter raised more than $10 million from nearly 70,000 backers who wanted a stylish watch that connects with your smartphone.

The $150 watch has a 1.26-inch-diagonal Sharp Memory LCD screen. The 144-pixel-by-168-pixel screen refreshes at 30 frames per second, so it features smooth animations and a responsive interface. The watch weighs in at a little more than one ounce and comes in five colors (black, white, red, gray, and orange).

More info |$150

The Sony Handycam HDR-PJ760V’s coolest feature by far is its floating-lens stabilization system.

When viewing the camcorders head-on during a product demo, the lens appeared to stay in the same horizontal and vertical position even as the camcorder was moving around; it truly looked like a human eyeball retaining focus on a subject as the “head” moved around.

Sony says that the new stabilization system compensates for 13 times more shake than its previous high-end optical stabilization system.

More info | $1600

One Laptop Per Child is back in the tablet race, announcing a new 7-inch tablet running the Android OS that will be sold commercially and include the company’s learning software.

The XO Tablet has a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, 8GB of storage, a MicroSD card slot, a MicroUSB port, and front and rear cameras. The display can show images at a 1024-by-600 pixel resolution.

The tablet will be available at Walmart later this year.

More info | Price not set

We’ve seen hybrid designs combining tablets and Ultrabooks before, but this is some forward thinking. Intel’s Smart Touch design actually shrinks the screen from 13.3 inches to 11.6 inches when you remove it from the keyboard base.

Normally making the screen smaller is a no-no, but the bezel is so narrow that you need the extra screen space for your thumbs when using it in tablet mode. And the design couples this with a patent-pending electromechanical locking design and a keyboard with a separate battery for more power that Intel says can last for about 13 hours. More info | No price set

The future really is here when you have to have an app store for your car, and now YOU can develop the apps for them.

GM plans to offer developers a software developer kit (SDK) through its online developer portal at developer.gm.com. The portal will let developers work with GM to design, test, and deliver integrated automotive apps for the company’s new infotainment systems

Ford announced Monday that it would be the first automaker to open its in-vehicle infotainment app platform to third-party developers.

Can the CarFart app be far behind?

More info | Price not set