Digital Trends’ mobile team shares its picks for best tech of CES 2018

By Parker Hall January 12, 2018

Though CES isn’t quite as big deal in the world of mobile devices as the annual Mobile World Congress conference, which occurs at the end of February in Barcelona this year, there was still a vast assortment of interesting mobile products to check out this week in Las Vegas. That was especially true when it came to peripherals like wearables.

From the drama surrounding a rumored brand partnership between Huawei and AT&T to the first working example of an in-display fingerprint sensor that we’ve seen, there was plenty to keep section editor Julian Chokkattu and associate editor Andy Boxall busy this week. Chokkattu and Boxall sat down at the Digital Trends booth to discuss the most interesting technology they saw at this years conference, sharing their insights into how and why each new piece of mobile technology will influence the direction of mobile phones in 2018.

“What the underglass fingerprint sensor means in terms of the general trends of this year is that it allows for more of a bezel-less design,” said Chokkattu of the new touch technology, which his team chose for their Top Tech of CES award in 2018, “This is going to change smartphone design, I think.”

In addition to their top tech pick, the duo spent some time discussing the latest phones from Blackberry and Sony — noting in particular that Sony’s latest entry-level and midtier mobile devices will finally have unlocked fingerprint sensors in the United States, which is something that the company has never done on previous phones, despite the fact that the sensor was installed on the device and usable in other countries.

Check out the full conversation with our mobile editors above, and be sure to read their roundup articles on the best mobile accessories of CES 2018, as well as the best overall technology that we saw in Las Vegas this year.

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Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…

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