IFA 2017 round-up: The most important announcements to come out of Berlin this week

High-end PCs, cameras, phones, and more after the jump!

By Team HardwareZone - 5 Sep 2017

What's brewing at IFA 2017?

With 1,805 exhibitors and a show floor spanning 159,000 square meters, IFA is without question the most important tech marketplace this time of the year.

At the bottom of this article you’ll find a list of important IFA 2017 announcements we’ve specially curated for you. The show is still on-going, so bookmark this page as we’ll continue to update it as and when we come across products that are noteworthy.

For a start, here are the top announcements that have gotten us excited so far:

1.) Lenovo Yoga 920

Lenovo’s newest Yoga 920 2-in–1 flagship is decked with high-end components, including a 13.9-inch 3,840 x 2,160-pixel IPS touchscreen display, an Intel Core i7–8550U CPU (8th-gen!), 16GB RAM, a 1TB SATA SSD, and two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports. Lenovo claims a 10.8-hour battery life for this 4K model, which is decent enough, but if you want something longer lasting and don’t mind losing the 4K screen, there’s a full HD variant that lasts 15.5 hours.

Bonus: Check out the many flavors of the Yoga 920, including special Star Wards Rebel and Imperial editions here.

2.) LG V30

The LG V30 is arguably the most attention-grabbing flagship Android phone at IFA 2017. Key specs include a 6-inch, 18:9 Quad HD+ OLED FullVision display protected by Gorilla Glass 5, IP68 water and dust resistance, a dual-camera setup that includes a 16MP camera with an F1.6 aperture lens, a Hi-Fi Quad DAC with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) support, and USB-C connectivity. Powered by a Snapdragon 835 SoC, it’s also equipped with 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, with support for a microSD card.

3.) Sony RX0

The Sony RX0 features a 15.3MP 1.0-inch stacked Exmor RS CMOS image sensor and a wide-angle 24mm F4 Zeiss Tessar T* lens. It also supports shutter speeds up to 1/32,000s, and high 16fps continuous shooting rate. Heck, this small, 110g camera is even waterproof up to 10m, shockproof up to 2m, and crushproof up to 200kgf.

4.) Sony Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact

Sony has unveiled the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact at IFA 2017, and of course, we’ve to do a hands-on. A primer: the XZ1 has a 5.2-inch full HD display while the XZ1 Compact stands at 4.6 inches and just 720p. However under the hood, both got a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB RAM, and a 2,700mAh battery. Both phones also feature a 19MP Motion Eye camera as their main camera, but the bigger XZ1 has a 13MP front camera (8MP on the Compact). Both phones will launch with Android 8.0 Oreo.

5.) LG 27GK750F

LG is jumping onto the 240Hz gaming monitor bandwagon, and at IFA, we were treated to the new 27GK750F, a 27-inch display parked under the Korean company’s GK series. The super-fast panel aside, the GK750F also sports LG’s 1ms Motion Blur Reduction tech and AMD FreeSync for low-latency gameplay. It even has a Crosshair mode that places a target in the center of the monitor in order to enhance accuracy in FPS games. If you prefer a bigger monitor, there’s the 32-inch GK850G, though this model only has a 144Hz panel.

6.) Acer Predator Orion 9000

High-end PC gaming rigs are back! Case in point: the Acer Predator Orion 9000 with an 18-core Intel Core i9–7980XE processor, four AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics cards, and up to 128GB of quad-channel DDR4 RAM. To keep everything humming along, the Orion 9000 will sport liquid cooling and Acer’s IceTunnel 2.0 airflow management technology. To let people know what an hardcore gamer you are, the chassis has a large windowed side panel for a view of its innards and RGB lighting trails that run down the front of the case. It even has wheels at the bottom to make transportation of this likely-to-be-very-expensive rig easier.

7.) Sony WF–1000X

Sony has finally released its own wire-free earbuds in the form of the WF–1000X. In addition to a truly wireless design, the compact WF–1000X also incorporates noise-canceling features, including an Adaptive Sound Control system that automatically detects your activity (e.g., traveling, walking, waiting) and adjusts the ambient sound settings. The accompanying Headphones Connect app is packed with many presets, too, so you can find the perfect sound tone for every song. Sony quotes a music playtime of 3 hours, or up to a total of 9 hours when you factor in the chargeable carrying case.

8.) Huawei Kirin 970 SoC

Huawei didn't unveil the Mate 10 phone, but it did take the wraps off the processor that's going to power it: the Kirin 970. According to Huawei, the NPU (neural processing unit) on the Kirin 970 is able to deliver up to 25 times the performance with 50 times better efficiency than the CPU of the Kirin 970. In short, this is a chip designed to power AI computing. Furthermore, to expand the Kirin 970's AI capabilities, Huawei is touting the chipset as an "open platform" for developers and partners to work out innovative uses. For the nitty-gritty, the Kirin 970 is built by TSMC on a 10nm process. It consists of four ARM Cortex-A73 cores and four ARM Cortex-53 cores, clocked at 2.4GHz and 1.8GHz respectively. It is also the first commercial chipset to use the Mali-G72, the latest GPU from ARM. We can't wait to see what the Mate 10 can do with this powerful chip.

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