22 cool gadgets from Asian hardware giants at CES

Here at Tech In Asia we tend to tilt our coverage towards startups and industry news, as there are plenty of other great blogs around the world that keep tabs on every single component that’s inside every single gadget released by LG or Acer.

At the same time, we still like to keep our eyes on big-picture gadget trends and challenges that the Asian hardware giants face.

So we’ve put together a quick roundup of the the most interesting products that came out at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, compiled from our favorite blogs, with an eye towards capturing the general gist of what the massive Asian gadget makers have in store for 2014.

Taiwan

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ASUS PadFone X

• It’s a phone inside a tablet! It runs Android 4.4 and has NFC, but that’s about all we know for know
• Coming to the US for the first time this year, no price yet

ASUS’ PadFone – the phone that fits in a tablet – sparked international curiosity when it first hit Asia about a year ago. The next-gen PadFone X will finally give Americans the chance to check out the two-birds-one-stone device when it hits American shores in 2014. Little is known about the device’s pricing or release date, but it will reportedly be rolled out in cooperation with AT&T.

ASUS Transformer Book Duet TD300

• Dual boots Android 4.2.2 and Windows 8.1
• No word yet on availability and pricing.

If Asus were a superhero movie, it would be Transformers, as the company keeps pushing products that are one thing which can turn into the other. In the case of the Asus Transformer Book Duet TD300, users can switch from Windows to Android OS with just the push of a button, and can detach the screen from the keyboard to turn the laptop into a portable tablet. The Micromax Laptab (below) is similar.

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India

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Micromax Laptab

• Dual-boots Android 4.2.2 or Windows 8.1
• Goes on sale in February; price unknown

Intel has made it clear that it thinks hybrid laptop-tablets are what consumers want, and a few manufacturers have responded quickly with Intel powered Frakenstein machines. One of these is Micromax’s Laptab, which has a 10.1-inch screen at 1280×800 pixels. It’s touchscreen, of course, and you can choose to run Android 4.2.2 or Microsoft’s Windows 8.1. It’s an interesting move to go global by Micromax.

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China

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OnePlus smartphone

ZTE BlueWatch

ZTE Projector Hotspot

ZTE Grand S II, Nubia 5s, and 5s mini

ZTE modular phone concept

Huawei Ascend Mate 2

Lenovo ThinkVision 28

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Hong Kong

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East West Micro Elite

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South Korea

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Samsung and LG big bendy TVs

Samsung’s Chef Collection

LG’s HomeChat

LG’s Lifeband Touch

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Japan

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Panasonic’s Wearable 4K Camera

Sony’s cloud TV service

Sony’s PlayStation Now

Sony’s 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector