IFA findings

Tradeshows and conventions are nothing new. IFA 2016, as per usual, is the biggest tech trade show in all of Europe. Just like every year, you see plenty of amazing and equally strange gadgets for the technology of tomorrow. This year is no exception, as we take a look at some highlights from the past weekend.Gaming beastAcer did something incredibly bold, and quite ridiculous. In fact, some may say it’s absolutely unnecessary. But to hard-core gamers, this could be something out of their wildest dreams. Acer introduced a 21-inch gaming laptop that weights, get this, 17 pounds. That’s not a typo. The Predator 21X is a behemoth with four speakers and two subwoofers that needs two power supplies to run. Jaw dropped yet? Well, maybe the five system fans and eight heatpipes might make you want to take a breather. That’s not all, of course. The Predator is also the world’s first laptop with a curved display. It houses two GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs and has a built-in mechanical keyboard. Now, hold onto your horses you PC gaming geeks. This is only a prototype that was introduced at IFA. And with those ridiculous specs, you bet your tush it’ll cost much more than your average premium laptop.Sony safeLast year’s Sony reveal of the Xperia X5 was absolutely unnecessary. It introduced the visitors to the world’s first ever 4K screen on a smartphone. And what exactly did that accomplish? Not much. Fortunately, this time around, Sony took the safer path. The company presented the new 5.2-inch displayed Xperia XZ. The new XZ boasts a better 23-megapixel rear camera and a 13-megapixel selfie cam up front. There’s also that sexy all-metal build that you can submerge into water for about five meters for around 30 minutes. In addition, there’s the Qualcomm 820 chipset, ran by the Android Marshmallow. Great innovative approach? Of course not. The reason this model stood out because the rest in comparison wasn’t as logical as the XZ. This little device was possibly the one that made the most sense. When you’re in a room full of strange devices, normalcy is a very welcomed concept.Wireless noiseIt should come to no surprise the next step in tech is to be as wireless as possible with all major devices. We’re still waiting for those rumours to come true about Apple getting rid of their 3.5mm headphone jack. In turn, you’ll see more and more wireless accessories and headphones in the market. Wireless headphones are going to take things up to the next level, going super luxe as people say in the trade. Sony’s MDR-1000X is very pricy, but with legitimate reason. It clearly offers incredible sound with active noise-cancelling that goes head-to-head with Bose. It goes so far that the headphone takes the shape of your head and ears into account. It can even tell if you’re wearing glasses. The better the ear-cups knows your shape, the more comfortable and noise it can block out.Yoga stretchesLenovo is no stranger to the laptop market; they are seasoned veterans of the game. What is more impressive is how they have improved in design. The company introduced both the Yoga 910 and Yoga Book, which are hybrid PCs that fold over on themselves to become a tablet. The 910 pretty much gets rid of the bezel around the screen, which means there’s almost a perfect trade-off between the screen size and actual size of the entire device. The Yoga Book, however, takes the cake. It’s the best representation of a future-esque design for a new laptop. This wonder takes away the traditional keyboard. Instead of the traditional physical buttons, the space where you would usually type has been replaced by a touchscreen. The touchscreen displays a digital keyboard which makes the entire device slimmer and lighter. It’s sort of like a third-party app you might use on your smartphone’s keyboard like Swift. This touchscreen is customisable and you can even turn into a drawing pad. Versatile? You bet.