The Morning After: Sony Honda’s new car, Lego’s first CES press event and more
Welcome to your first CES edition of TMA, attempting (almost futilely) to distill the biggest product reveals and announcements. Despite two days of briefings and conferences, today is merely day one. However, we’ve already seen Sony Honda reveal its next car — and the Afeela 1 isn’t yet on sale. We’ve got a deep dive on what we’ve seen so far, right here.
AMD announced new Ryzen AI 400 laptop processors and updated desktop chips, including the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, with a new focus broadly on AI processing improvements. NVIDIA had a lengthy, dense press conference showing off its dominance in AI tech, but it lacked major consumer announcements — until overnight, when it revealed next-gen G-Sync tech and an upgraded version of DLSS. The new tech can handle up to 4K 240Hz path traced performance. It also adds an improved version of Super Resolution Transformer, with more stability.
This year’s wildcard CES press conference was… Lego? It revealed Smart Bricks, which adds sensors, audio and wireless communication to traditional Lego pieces. The system is launching with Star Wars sets later this year — and perhaps crucially, no smartphone or screen is needed to play.
There’s also LG and Samsung to get into — more on those below!
— Mat Smith
The other big stories (and deals) this morning
Intel hopes its Core Ultra Series 3 chips are the start of a comeback
Razer’s Project Madison concept chair has reactive lighting, immersive audio and multi-zone haptics
It took guts for Dell to admit its mistake. Here’s how XPS will make its big comeback
Garmin had the nerve to launch a food-tracking feature in Las Vegas
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Trifold gets me excited about foldables again
Phone and tablet, together.
After launching its double-folding smartphone in Korea, Samsung is giving its newest foldable the press tour at CES 2026 and, despite reservations, it’s slick. The key difference between the Z Trifold and the Z Fold series is a second fold-out wing, turning it from a traditional smartphone into a more tablet-like form factor, closer to what we’re used to. Farewell square-ish screens.
This is what we were promised when foldables first appeared: a larger screen that offers greater utility than traditional smartphones, without compromise. Sam Rutherford tested one out. Read on for his impressions.
Samsung’s giant 130-inch TV is here to make you want Micro RGB TVs
In more wall-friendly sizes.
The big reveal at Samsung’s First Look CES press conference was literally big: a flagship 130-inch Micro RGB TV framed by a giant metal easel with embedded speakers. It’s much more in the realm of concept than reality — no price, no release date. It works as a halo product for more realistic TV sets using Samsung’s new preferred display technology. This year it’ll be offering TVs in 55-, 65- and 75-inch sizes. And if you’re curious, we explain what Micro RGB TVs are.
LG’s approach to TVs at CES 2026? Variety.
Oh, and scale.
CES 2026 marks the return of LG’s ultra-thin Wallpaper TV. The latest version sports a gorgeous OLED screen and wireless connectivity, and it’s about as thin as a pencil. We checked out the new Wallpaper TV during a CES preview event, along with LG’s Gallery and Micro RGB sets. If money were no object, I’d want a 100-inch LG Wallpaper TV. According to Devindra Hardawar, it looks “shockingly thin” in person.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-ces-2026-press-day-174444560.html?src=rss
