This is my favorite kind of CES chaos, and this year it belongs to Qualcomm. For ages Microsoft owned the opening keynote. Now Qualcomm takes the slot, and Paul Jacobs delivers a gloriously strange show he calls Born Mobile, complete with Big Bird, a Maroon 5 performance, a Guillermo del Toro cameo, and, because why not, Steve Ballmer wandering out for old times’ sake.
The Snapdragon 800 is the real story
Underneath the spectacle is the chip that matters, the Snapdragon 800, and it is going to power the best Android phones of the year. Snapdragon Insider bias on the table, because I am fired up about this one: it is the moment Qualcomm stops being an anonymous component and starts being a brand people ask for by name. Around it, 4K TVs arrive under the Ultra HD banner and Samsung teases bendable Youm displays.
The trend for the year ahead
Snapdragon becomes the default engine of premium Android, and the spec race moves squarely to the chip. 4K, meanwhile, starts its long, slow march from absurd luxury to something normal.
A keynote this weird only works if the silicon backs it up, and it does. Watch the Snapdragon brand this year. I think it is about to become a selling point printed right on the box.
Part of 20 Years of CES Through My Lens, my year-by-year diary of the show.