How-To Geek’s Best of IFA 2024 Award Winners

Are you curious what was worth a look at IFA 2024? We were there, and while there was a lot choose from, here are all the gadgets we thought stood out as the best of IFA this year.

Not sure what IFA is? The Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin is an event held every year in Berlin, Germany. Since it started in 1929, it’s become essentially the European equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in the US every January. While it’s located in Europe, vendors from all over the world come to IFA to show off their latest wares.

Intel Core Ultra 200V Series

Intel revealed its new generation of laptop processors at IFA: the Intel Core Ultra Series 2, also known as Core Ultra 200V. The new chips are supposedly a decent upgrade from last year’s Meteor Lake hardware, with Intel promising “up to 3x the performance per thread” and “up to 80% peak performance uplift” compared to the last generation.

The main improvement here is up to 120 TOPS of performance across the CPU, integrated graphics (iGPU), and neural processing unit (NPU). That’s a lot of power for local AI tasks, like Windows Copilot+ PC features or running your own LLM. The new processors will be in many laptops coming over the next few months.

Snapdragon X Plus SoC

It took a few tries, but Qualcomm and Microsoft are finally ushering in the era of ARM-based Windows PCs, with improved battery life and power efficiency as important selling points. The first wave of Windows laptops with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chipsets arrived a few months ago, and Qualcomm introduced a new lower-end option at IFA.

The new Snapdragon X Plus 8-Core chips allow PC manufacturers to build Windows laptops with long battery life without breaking the bank—Qualcomm expects they will be used in laptops with prices as low as $700. One ASUS Vivobook with a Snapdragon X Plus is already available for $900. The chips have an 8-core ARM CPU, an Adreno GPU, and a built-in NPU for local AI and machine learning tasks. It should give you great performance for typical productivity tasks and light gaming, assuming your software is compatible.

ASUS NUC 14 Pro AI

Last year, Intel announced it was giving up on the ubiquitous NUC line of mini PCs, but that was followed by ASUS announcing it had the license to manufacture NUCs in the future. Fans of the NUC series can say hello to a new entry: the ASUS NUC 14 Pro AI.

It isn’t the first ASUS-branded NUC (those arrived at CES 2024), but is the first one that’s AI-branded. Internally, it sports the just-announced Intel Core Ultra 9 288V processor which combines the CPU, GPU, and NPU into one efficient little device. The NUC 14 Pro AI also uses the speedy LPDDR5x standard of RAM, and its design allows for tool-less upgrades. Unfortunately, we don’t know yet what the price will be or when the NUC 14 Pro AI will arrive in stores

TCL 50 Pro NXTPAPER 5G

No tech show would be complete without smartphone manufacturers jockeying for the most interesting feature, but one particular standout this year was TCL’s 50 Pro NXTPAPER 5G.

The 50 Pro NXTPAPER 5G features a screen that is capable of switching between three separate display modes: Normal, Color Paper, and Max Ink. On normal mode, the screen looks like what you’d expect on a modern smartphone, but with the press of a button, the entire display transforms into an E-Ink-like display.

E-Ink displays (or displays that replicate them) can reduce eye strain, make for a more pleasant reading experience, and dramatically extend your battery life—TCL claims you can get a whopping 7 days of use out of the phone while it is on Max Ink mode.

Besides the display, the 50 Pro NXTPAPER 5G has a dedicated ultrawide and macro camera in addition to the main camera, 33W fast charging, and a midrange processor from MediaTek, the Dimensity 6300. The phone also features expandable storage, up to a whopping 2 terabytes.

It is slated for a release to European and Latin American markets for 299 Euros, or about 330 U.S. Dollars. North American cellular networks will have limited compatibility with devices designed for European markets. You’ll want to manually compare which bands your carrier uses to the ones the phone uses if you intend to try and use it in North America.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table

SwitchBot took a place in our IFA picks last year for its innovative S10 robot vacuum design. This year, they’ve debuted several devices, but one that stood out to me (Jordan) was its Air Purifier Table. It’s exactly what the name suggests: an air purifier that’s also a table.

They’re not the first to think of this concept, but we’ve had generally positive SwitchBot products, like the S10 and the Hub 2, so we expect this to be one of the better options for furniture-purifier hybrids. Maybe it stood out to me just because between my tech projects, my cooking, and my physical media collection, I’m constantly running out of surfaces to place things on. Aside from being a table, though, it can also accept fragrance in its processing and emit ambient light.

You can buy the Air Purifier Table now from SwitchBot’s website for $270.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition

The ThinkPad series of laptops is a longtime staple in the portable computing space, and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition releases later this month with a starting price of $1,299. The Aura name refers to its AI capabilities. As is often the case with manufacturers in 2024, most of what Lenovo is calling AI features sound more like sensible automation than anything else. For example, it can automatically connect you to your VPN when you connect to an insecure Wi-Fi network, which sounds convenient whether it actually involves machine learning or not.

Internally, the X1 Carbon Gen 13 sports the just-announced Intel Core Ultra 200V series chip which boasts 120 TOPS across the GPU, CPU, and NPU. It also claims a “30% average performance” boost and a battery that lasts all day, but we’re yet to see how that plays out in actual benchmarks. Also worth noting is the Dolby-certified speakers and 2.8L OLED display.

Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360

Samsung’s new Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 is the company’s latest powerful laptop with a 16-inch 3K super-resolution screen and a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. Powered by Intel’s new Core Ultra processors, which were also announced for IFA, it offers impressive performance and long-lasting battery life. The laptop also features a 10-point multi-touch screen and an S Pen for direct screen interaction.

As mentioned, one of the exciting things about the Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 is the brand new Intel Core Ultra processors. Intel claims they have 4X the NPU power compared to previous generations. For better or worse, this will be put to use for Galaxy AI and Copilot. The laptop also features an Intel Arc GPU and supports Wi-Fi 7. With a slim design and a battery life of up to 25 hours, the Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 is expected to be available in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK starting in September. Samsung did not share pricing details.

ASUS ProArt PZ13

While there are lots of laptops and tablets floating around IFA, including many familiar models only with upgraded CPUs, the new ASUS ProArt PZ13 looks refreshingly nice. In fact, its stylish design and slew of features could give the Surface Pro a bit of competition.

You’ll enjoy a large 13-inch 3K OLED touchscreen display, the Snapdragon X Plus eight-core processor, 16GB of RAM, and plenty of storage all in a device weighing just 1.87 lbs. Pull out the stylus, then enjoy AI-powered tools like StoryCube for asset management, a nifty ProArt Creator Hub, and a six-month CapCut subscription for video editing. It’s a well-rounded Windows tablet coming soon for creative folks, but US pricing is currently unknown.

XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro Portable Projector

XGIMI had a lot of cool projectors to show off at IFA 2024. We reviewed and loved the Horizon Ultra last year, which is getting a more affordable successor, but it’s XGIMI’s upcoming portable options I (Cory) am excited about.

The new XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro is a coffee cup-sized portable projector packed with tech. It’s powered by Google TV, the base rocks Harmon Kardon speakers, and it’s capable of projecting a 120-inch screen at 1080p. As expected, it has automatic keystone correction, focus adjustment, along with an included 130-degrees tilt stand. It’s small, lightweight, and portable, making it easy to turn any location into movie night.

Ugreen Uno Charger 100W

There are many USB-C wall chargers, but not many of them have a fun design. The Ugreen Uno 100W is a new compact charger with four USB-C ports and one USB Type-A connector, complete with an animated face that changes based on the current charging status.

Ugreen revealed a few other charging accessories alongside the main multi-port wall charger, all with a similar face screen. You can check out our Uno Charger 100W review for more information.