IFA 2015: the best of Europe’s biggest tech show – The Verge

The PC industry is betting big on gamers

2015-09-07T10:51:58-04:00

Acer, Asus, and Lenovo are on a charm offensive at IFA this year, and their target demographic is that reliably spendthrift group we know as gamers. Collectively, these three companies account for a third of global PC shipments, and they represent an industry-wide trend toward promoting more gaming gear. The hope is that slumping PC sales can be rejuvenated by appealing to the class of users who upgrade their hardware most often and spend most lavishly.

The PC gaming market produced $21.5 billion in hardware sales last year, according to data from Jon Peddie Research, which is more than double the revenues derived from console sales. More n …

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I stared into the abyss of Sony’s 4K phone and saw nothing new

2015-09-05T12:42:47-04:00

There are many things ailing Sony's once-great empire. Its PC business is now its former PC business, and the mobile devices that were meant to save it have landed the company into even more trouble. In spite of making a series of very good Xperia smartphones, the Japanese company finds itself perpetually on the back foot against competitors that are either cheaper, more popular, better distributed, or some combination of all three. So how do you solve a problem like Sony's smartphone dilemma?

Read next: The Sony Xperia Z5 review.

Not with a freaking 4K display. Sony decided to do the thirstiest thing possible at IFA this year by introduci …

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Hitting rock bottom, Kodak style

2015-09-05T07:38:01-04:00

Oh, Kodak, you used to be an institution. When people needed new film for their cameras, yours was the first name they thought of. You encapsulated the joy of photography with one of the most elegant marketing slogans ever: the Kodak moment.

But now you're trapped in a hexagonal prison of emotions. Regretting all the things you didn't do. Mourning the opportunities you didn't take and the adaptations you didn't make. Your reputation has reached its inevitable nadir. You are now a selfie stick brand.

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Samsung’s Gear S2 can make me a believer in smartwatches

2015-09-04T06:31:51-04:00

Read next: The Samsung Gear S2 review.

A year ago, I was here at IFA in a state of exasperation. Every electronics company was throwing a diversity of awkward smartwatches at the wall and waiting to see what stuck. Nothing did, because they were all too big, unwieldy, and compromised. This year, though, Samsung has launched a volley so powerful and immediately convincing that it might just break the wall down entirely. I've just worn the first smartwatch that I would actually consider buying.

The slimmer, handsomer alternative to Android Wear

Samsung's Gear S2 is unlike any other smartwatch pretender I've yet seen. It is the size and weight …

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Parrot’s pillow-soft Zik 3 headphones never need wires

2015-09-04T05:52:33-04:00

Trying on Parrot's new Zik 3 headphones is like being swaddled in expensive upholstery. The wireless headphones' plush exterior feels soft in your hand and fits snugly over your ears. Then Parrot's new automatic noise canceling software kicks in and the outside world is muted before you start listening to whatever music you prefer. But in the same way that a treacherously squashy sofa can trap the unwary, the Zik 3 can be difficult to get full control over. Can too much comfort be a bad thing?

Like previous Zik headphones, the Zik 3s have a capacitive panel on the right earpiece that allows you to control your music by swiping backwards and …

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Alcatel built a 17-inch Android tablet for your kitchen

2015-09-03T23:36:04-04:00

Alcatel wants its new 17.3-inch Xess tablet to be a multipurpose hub for the family, providing recipes in the kitchen, films in the living room, and a digital whiteboard for to-do lists and upcoming events. However, the severely underpowered Android device doesn't seem to be capable of entertaining even a single individual, let alone a whole household. The device has a fine 1920 x 1080 display, but an unspecified 1.5 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM mean that even swiping through pages of apps becomes a chore as icons are dragged slowly across the screen. Alcatel has stressed that the Xess is still a prototype at this stage, but it's in need of …

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Hands-on with Huawei’s new flagship smartphone, the Mate S

2015-09-03T19:43:18-04:00

Huawei's design ideas might not be wholly original, but that doesn't mean the company's not building great smartphones. Its new flagship, the Mate S, is the case in point. Some models have a pressure-sensitive screen that just happens to have the same name as Apple's Force Touch technology and the rear and sides of the device might look like a HTC One M9, but this is still a device that's clean-looking, well built, and just a pleasure to hold in the hand.

Its rear-mounted fingerprint sensor is fast, activating with just a touch. Although the device has its fare share of gimmicks, they don't distract from what is o …

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Philips’ new 4K TV transforms your living room into one huge screen

2015-09-03T17:42:40-04:00

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Philips made a splash at last year's IFA conference when it showed off a television set with embedded, handheld projectors that could take an image onscreen and extend it to the wall behind the set. The visual trick is intended to create a more immersive viewing experience as the picture pours off the screen. Now a variation of Philips' Ambilight technology, which it calls "Ambilight projection," is making its way to a new 65-inch AmbiLux 4K TV due out later this year.

The Dutch lighting and technology giant debuted the TV at the IFA conference in Germany today, though it did not specify a price tag. It will be available in the fourth quart …

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Hands-on with Marshall’s rock’n’roll Android smartphone

2015-09-03T15:32:09-04:00

Earlier this year, Marshall surprised the tech community by unveiling the London smartphone - a conventional Android device with quite unconventional styling. At the time, Marshall was lauded for doing something different in the rather staid smartphone world (or rather, the Swedish firm Zound Industries was praised for not messing up the brand they'd licensed), but how does the London stand up to closer scrutiny?

We had a play with the would-be rock'n'roll smartphone at IFA and found that while the handset is certainly not a disappointment, it's perhaps not the design tour-de-force some were hoping for. Overall, the look of the London is ef …

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Samsung’s Gear S2 is its best-looking smartwatch yet

2015-09-03T13:01:03-04:00

Samsung and smartwatches have had a tenuous relationship. It's not for lack of trying - Samsung released six different smartwatches before Apple even launched one - it's just that none of them have been particularly good. Chunky designs, slow performance, and limited software have all been things that have plagued Samsung's smartwatch efforts since they began in 2013. That all may be changing, however, as the recently announced Gear S2 is the most promising smartwatch I've seen from Samsung.

Read next: The Samsung Gear S2 review.

The Gear S2 is unlike the rest of Samsung's smartwatches because it actually looks like a watch that I'd want t …

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