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intro
There was a time when you could expect the greatest gear in every product category to roll out at CES. The best laptops. The best TVs. The best mobile phones. But that time has passed us by. Production cycles are faster. Companies do their own things. CES is not the same show it once was.
The lion's share of new laptop releases came out shortly after Windows 8 shipped in October. Most of the new phones we'll see for the year will be announced next month at Mobile World Congress. Apple and Microsoft and Google and Amazon make their own news, at their own events, in their own time.
Some have argued this means CES 2013 was a disappointment, or that the show has lost its way. Maybe so. But the fact is there was still a heck of a lot of wondrous new gadgetry to see at CES. Some of it is stuff that isn't even shipping yet. In fact, some of our favorite things were the wildest and the least likely to actually see production this year.
If you want to know what this year's CES was about, it was about the end, and the beginning. It's the end of the era of Microsoft and Sony. It's the beginning of the rise of Chinese companies like Hisense, Huawei, Haier, and TCL. It's the year that some of the best products came out of startups, and even Kickstarter. This is the CES of the future, and we love it. And here are a few of our favorite things.
Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired 
The lion's share of new laptop releases came out shortly after Windows 8 shipped in October. Most of the new phones we'll see for the year will be announced next month at Mobile World Congress. Apple and Microsoft and Google and Amazon make their own news, at their own events, in their own time.
Some have argued this means CES 2013 was a disappointment, or that the show has lost its way. Maybe so. But the fact is there was still a heck of a lot of wondrous new gadgetry to see at CES. Some of it is stuff that isn't even shipping yet. In fact, some of our favorite things were the wildest and the least likely to actually see production this year.
If you want to know what this year's CES was about, it was about the end, and the beginning. It's the end of the era of Microsoft and Sony. It's the beginning of the rise of Chinese companies like Hisense, Huawei, Haier, and TCL. It's the year that some of the best products came out of startups, and even Kickstarter. This is the CES of the future, and we love it. And here are a few of our favorite things.
Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired 
