SlashGear's Best Of IFA 2022

After a couple of years of largely virtual tech conferences (and events of all sorts, for that matter), we're back to in-person action at IFA 2022 in Berlin. This year's conference isn't nearly as massive as it's been in the past, but some of the biggest brands have come packing top-tier tech all the same. This year's collection of items aim to overcome the drudgery of the last few years, not by staying the course, but by bashing forward with the confidence of a creator who knows they've made something brand new and exciting.

Our Best of IFA 2022 list features Samsung, Sony, Fitbit, Honor, Lenovo, Kobo, Philips, JBL, and Leica. We've sought out and found the best in everything from desktop monitors to ereaders — and the list is solid. Some products are winners because they presented a fantastic innovation, while others appear courtesy of their steadfast devotion to reliable simplicity, and a few might just surprise you.

Despite the fact that Sony's never been a unit sales leader in the global smartphone market, they continue to hammer away at what they know works. This week, Sony revealed the Xperia 5 IV, a device that stick to what works when it comes to Sony's industrial design language, wrapping that around a high-end Android smartphone experience that just happens to have a 6.1-inch OLED display panel with 120Hz refresh rate, and camera technology borrowed from the company's camera division.

The Sony Xperia 5 IV is not the most extravagant phone at IFA 2022, but it is the most impressive 6.1-inch smartphone we've seen in years. It helps that Sony's allowed a 3.5mm headphone jack to stick around and bumped the battery capacity from the less impressive 4,500 mAh of this device's predecessor up to 5,000 mAh in this new model. Sony's never shied away from going their own way when it comes to smartphone features and solid, beautiful hardware — this Sony Xperia 5 IV is no exception.

Fitbit showed up to IFA 2022 with three updated versions of tried-and-true wearable fitness trackers. The Fitbit Inspire 3 delivers the simplest vision of the bunch, with a pill-shaped piece of hardware that can be detached from its strap and used on its own (or with a uniquely-designed clip accessory) — and without the other two products in the mix, it might've won this category on its own. Instead, Fitbit revealed two more fitness trackers with different names and very similar features.

Our Fitness Tracker category is won by the Fitbit Sense 2. The Fitbit Sense 2 and Fitbit Versa 4 have nearly identical hardware — including displays and sizes and shapes. But the slightly more expensive of the two, the Sense 2, has electrical sensors capable of ECG and EDA readings. The result is a pair of smartwatches that look and feel like high quality, fashion-forward watches, but with the data tracking exercise fans now expect.

The Kobo Clara 2E is quite easily the best option for ebook enthusiasts who do not want to buy products from the Amazon, Google, or Apple ecosystem. This ereader is simple. It has a 6-inch E Ink Carta 1200 glare-free screen that'll allow you to read in either the light or the dark, courtesy of Kobo's Dark Mode. There's also a bit of blue light reduction tech the company calls ComfortLightPro. Kobo claims that the shell of the ereader is 85% recycled plastic and the company has protective cases ready to roll for when the device is available to buy.

it's waterproof, and has a decent 16GB of internal storage for one whole heck of a lot of ebooks. Or, if you want to load a bunch of your own PDF files to this device, you can go ahead and do so since, as is the case with other Kobo devices, the Clara 2E is not inextricably tethered to any one book store or system. Kobo itself sells both DRM and DRM-free ebooks, and Kobo devices support a wide range of ebook and document formats.

The JBL Tour Pro 2 is a pair of earbuds with ANC and ambient modes, as well as JBL Pro Sound and Spatial Sound. These buds roll with 10mm drivers and are the direct successors to the still-decent JBL Tour Pro+ originally revealed at CES 2021. However, the audio technology delivered by the JBL Tour Pro 2 earbuds isn't actually the most impressive bit about the product. 

It's the earbuds case that seems to have out-innovated the rest of the market. This case has its own touchscreen that doubles as a miniature remote control for your phone. You can control your earbuds and their settings from the case; you can also view notifications from your smartphone, and both screen and control phone calls that are then made using the connected earbuds. We've seen other companion devices like this before — but never in the charging case of a pair of earbuds.

The best TV at IFA 2022 does not have an OLED panel, nor a QLED panel. It doesn't have a curved display, and it's not made by Samsung or LG. In fact, it's offered by a company until now entirely absent from the large-scale display market. The Leica Cine 1 laser TV is a an ultra-short-throw projector with abilities far advanced beyond those of the vast majority of projectors released in the past, and it feels like a game-changer.

When we've heard the term "laser TV" used to describe short-throw projectors in the past, it always seemed like a bit of a misnomer. With the Leica Cine 1, our assumptions about the true definition of the word "TV" have been challenged. When we walked in the room with it running, it seemed as though we were looking at a speaker system in front of a TV built in to the nearby wall. Instead, the picture projected by this projector was so good, we had to double-check to be sure were weren't being pranked. Not cheap, certainly, but those who want big picture entertainment without a big screen need look no further.