The world’s largest annual consumer technology trade show is poised to welcome thousands of exhibitors and media back to Las Vegas in January following an unusually quiet, pandemic-ravaged CES 2022.
CES 2023 will host about 2,400 exhibitors — including many of the big hitters like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and JBL — and will take place over three days in early January. Can’t be there in person? The show will also be a digital affair, just like in 2022, with press conferences, keynotes and technical talks available for livestream.
CES is usually where many of these tech brands pull back the curtain on their latest innovations and unveil the best of their products to come that year. We can expect showcases of 2023 flagship TVs from LG, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, as well as brand new sets from the likes of TCL, Hisense and Vizio. There will also be plenty of new audio announcements in the way, from hi-fi components to the next generation of true wireless earbuds. And also the audio technology in the car often shines in a bright spotlight.
Which Hi-Fi? will be on site to bring you all the latest news and first impressions of what we’re seeing, hearing and experiencing, but for now here’s what we can expect from participating brands at the tech show…
CES 2023 dates: when is CES?
CES will officially take place between Thursday, January 5 and Sunday, January 8, 2023, although the “Media Days” – when most product news announcements break – will be held two days earlier on Tuesday, January 3 and Wednesday, January 4. These are the two days you’ll have whathifi.com in your browser window!
CES 2023 news preview: what’s being announced?
Since CES is a world stage for news announcements, not many are released for the show. Some press releases and teasers usually arrive in late December, so we’ll update this page as they appear, but we can guess which brands will wow audiences at CES 2023…
JBL
We don’t recall JBL ever having a quiet CES, so there’s no reason to believe it will start at CES 2023. That said, the company will join the show this year after a very productive previous 24 months in which it launched a bunch of hi-fi and audio products in celebration of its 75th anniversary, including the L100 Classic 75 speakers and the SA750 streaming amplifier. JBL will no doubt launch at least one pair of true wireless earbuds (although our money is on at least three pairs), and we can keep our fingers crossed that more JBL hi-fi landings are coming too.
Press conference: TB
Live stream: to follow
LG
As is the way, the CES Innovation Awards (which recognize “outstanding design and engineering” and preview what’s to come next in January) have already been awarded to a number of products for 2023. LG has already received 10 2023 CES Innovation Awards alone for its OLED TVs, with the company sharing that its 88-inch LG Signature OLED 8K TV was recognized in three categories, while its 97-inch OLED and LG OLED Flex received dual awards. As for other sets recognized by these Awards, we’ll have to wait until CES to find out.
However, the annually updated LG OLED series is expected to be unveiled to replace the multi Which Hi-Fi? Award-winning C2 series, as well as the A2, B2 and G2 series. Will they be called A3, B3, C3 and G3? It seems that South Korea’s National Radio Research Agency (NRRA) has already certified a 55-inch B3 TV and a 65-inch C3 TV. We can only speculate about the rest for now, but given the success of LG OLEDs in recent years, any OLED TV announcement for 2023 will be a big deal anyway.
Press conference: TB
Live stream: to follow
Panasonic & Engineering
Here are two brands that undoubtedly have big news to report. Year in, year out, Panasonic unveils its all-singing-all-dancing reference TV at CES, so CES 2023 should follow that pattern. Both of the 2022 Panasonic OLEDs we’ve reviewed this year, the 48-inch TX-48JZ980 and the 55-inch TX-55LZ980B, have received five-star reviews from us, with the larger size also receiving a Which Hi-Fi? Award, so we’re betting the company will stick with high-performing OLEDs for 2023.
Technics is also in great shape, recently impressing with its award-winning SA-C600 streaming system and EAH-A800 wireless headphones, so we’re just as hopeful that the brand will have something new to show off in January: new true wireless earbuds and perhaps even better, new hi-fi components.
Press conference: TB
Live stream: to follow
Samsung
Samsung’s theme for CES 2023 is “Bringing Calm to Our Connected World,” and the press conference will be hosted by Jong-Hee Han, Vice Chairman, CEO and head of Samsung’s DX (Device eXperience) Division, suggesting that a large part of the company’s focus will be on products and technologies within its smart home ecosystem. But it’ll no doubt pull a curtain off some sort of brand new TV, and if previous CES reveals are anything to go by, it’ll probably be most of the 2023 ranges, if not all.
Samsung’s current TVs include Micro LED, Neo QLED, QD-OLED and ‘lifestyle’ models, so we should be prepared for a wide spectrum of new TVs – and, fingers crossed, more in the way of QD- OLED sets and more affordable Micro LED.
Press conference: Wednesday, January 4, 2 p.m. PT
Live stream: https://news.samsung.com/global/
Sony
Sony is another brand going all in at CES, so we can be confident that new products across the TV and audio spectrum will be announced during the press conference. Will its 2023 flagship 4K TV be a QD-OLED again? We wouldn’t be surprised given the praise the 2022 Master Series A95K QD-OLED has received in recent months, although Micro LED is sure to appear on the Sony TV horizon – if not next year, then 2024.
Will we get a new Sony Dolby Atmos soundbar or a new pair of Sony LinkBuds? Is Sony coming out with a new Walkman or does it have updates to its Bravia Core video streaming service or 360 Reality Audio technology?
Press conference: Wednesday, January 4, 5 p.m. PT
Live stream: www.youtube.com/Sony
TCL
TCL won two CES Innovation Awards in 2023. The first is for the TCL 75C935, the brand’s latest generation 74-inch Mini LED 4K TV, which combines Mini LED and QLED panel technologies with 1920 full-array local dimming zones and support for a 144 Hz refresh rate to the premium TV to be choice for next year. And the second is for the TCL 75C835, also a Mini LED 4K TV, with support for Dolby Vision IQ and a 144Hz refresh rate alongside 360 panel control zones and a choice of Roku or Google TV operating systems.
Press conference: Wednesday, Jan. 4, 1 p.m. PT
Live stream: https://www.tcl.com/us/en/ces
Highlights from CES 2022: What was impressive last time?
Yes, CES 2022 ended up being a much more muted affair than usual after many major companies had to pull out due to COVID-19-related travel and health concerns. But while physical presence wasn’t what it usually is, product launches didn’t seem to suffer. Not only that, but they contain numerous success stories…
In the TV sector – arguably the show’s most consistently dominant in the home entertainment space – Samsung announced its first hybrid QD-OLED TV, which subsequently received rave reviews from us, as shown in our Samsung QE65S95B review (as is the Sony XR-55A95K QD-OLED we also saw this year). While QD-OLED and Micro LED technologies stole CES 2022 headlines, LG determinedly doubled down on its OLED Evo panels – and now has several 2022 Which Hi-Fi? Awards to show for it.
And we didn’t know at the time of the CES 2022 reveal that the Technics SA-C600 streaming amp would win a 2022 award Which Hi-Fi? Award too. The same goes for the Mark Levinson No.5909, which raised eyebrows in January for their unprecedented price tag in the wireless headphone space, only to receive a five-star review from us when we got our ears under it. And then there was the quirky Samsung Freestyle projector, which also impressed us when it entered our testing rooms in the months following its unveiling at CES.
Of course (it’s CES, after all), there were plenty of wacky products and inventions that made our best of CES 2022 too, so we can hope for more of that same outlandish creativity in January.