IFA aims to be the tech trade show after rebranding
Berlin show has opportunity to seize the crown from CES given current US trade and travel turmoil.
I’ll be honest, despite years of covering tech, and visiting CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, Mobile World Congress (in Barcelona and Shanghai), and Computex in Taipei, IFA in Berlin has always been one that I have yet to attend.
Known previously as the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin, it got a major rebrand last year as part of its 100th anniversary and is now known as Innovation for All. That’s a pretty good rebrand if you ask me, and is a lot easier to type out for English speakers than its original German name.
IFA 2024 had 215,000 visitors last year, of which 133,000 were trade visitors, as well as 1,800 exhibitors from all over the world. Attendance figures were 18% higher than the previous year as well. It’s a good sign that the rebrand is working.
But more importantly, given the troubles with visiting the US currently, IFA is starting to make more sense for global visitors. It’s a great location in the capital of Germany, and you’re not likely to be detained at the border by overzealous immigration agents. Of course, the timing could be better, though.
Taking place on 5 to 9 September this year, it’s happening when most brands aren’t ready to make big announcements for the next year. Plus, announcing too early would mean being forgotten by consumers come next year.
But I doubt there will be any major change in when the trade show takes place. September means it fills a gap in between other events, but if IFA continues to grow after its rebrand, it offers an interesting option for brands to rejig their launch schedules if heading to CES is no longer safe, or viable.
I wouldn’t be surprised if IFA continues to build on numbers and grow, especially as brands from all around the world figure that Berlin would be a lot easier to travel to than CES in Las Vegas. I also wonder how long the appeal of the US economy will last given all the tariff and TACO shenanigans taking place. It would be nice to visit IFA one day at long last, but I’m not holding my breath.
Anyways, this week, we tested Nvidia’s new mainstream graphics card that promises to run games at 1080p, and even 1440p resolution. We also checked out a new HP gaming notebook, as well as a new roguelike kingdom builder.
For most folks who are playing games at 1080p with the highest settings, or 1440p (without ray tracing), the MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Gaming OC is a good deal at S$579. Thanks to Nvidia's DLSS 4 technology, you can run most games at a high frame rate. However, it only has 8GB of video memory, which means textures in some games may look low-res at max settings. Still, it easily outperforms the previous RTX 4060.
The HP Omen Max 16 packs some of the best gaming hardware in a relatively portable 2.75kg chassis. It runs hot, is pretty noisy, and may even freeze in games when it gets overheated. But it’s also really powerful, and can run any game at the highest graphics setting. The price, while expensive, is not exorbitant, and reasonable for what you get.
A fun and addictive roguelike kingdom builder, 9 Kings is about playing cards (a building, spell, or troop) to defend your kingdom. The king you pick at the start decides what cards you get. Each game takes about 20 minutes, and you can play some interesting and powerful combos while you slowly unlock the rest of the kings.