CES 2020: more show than substance at this year’s concept-heavy event

The 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has come to a close, and we have all you need to know about the good, bad, and weird gadgets and tech this year’s event had to offer. The overall theme was concepts, our staff determined when deliberating the annual Verge Awards at CES 2020, which meant a lot of show without a lot of substance:

This year, the things that stole attention at the show were not early looks at products that you and I will be able to actually use and buy over the next 12 months. Sure, there’s the occasional laptop and meat substitute that will be available for purchase in 2020. But for every one of those, there’s a rolling ball robot, virtual personal attendant, or entire vehicle that is never likely to ship.

Our Best in Show award went to Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Fold, which — even though it’s on the expensive side and left us with a few questions — was the only foldable laptop with a confirmed shipping window and price tag. Most of the other laptops at this year’s CES were pretty boring, however, with little more than incremental updates on display. But there may be hope for the future with 5G modems and new screen technologies on the horizon.

We doled out awards for the most triumphant CES comeback (Lora DiCarlo), the most overhyped thing at this year’s show (Samsung’s Neon digital avatars), and the most concept (Sony’s Vision-S) as well. Of course, the best non-CES news that everyone at the show was talking about was Sonos’ lawsuit against Google, in which, it accuses the tech giant of patent infringement.

You can find the full list of the best of CES 2020 here.