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Canon has just made sharing captured images and videos from its cameras a lot easier. The Japanese multinational was present at CES 2015 and unveiled a new media sharing hub called the Canon Connect Station CS100. This is not a surprising announcement from the company as a similar device was rumored to hit the markets a few months back, which went by the name of Canon Cross Media Station. The CS100 looks like the refined version of this earlier leaked product. Canon markets the hub as a photo storage device, but it can do much more than just storing images and videos. The hub lets users transfer, view and share the content inside on a large screen TV or even a monitor with an HDMI connection. Transferring images and videos on this networked hub is easy, thanks to the NFC support and the inbuilt SD card, USB and Ethernet ports. The station offers a 1TB hard drive, Wi-Fi, NFC and a wireless remote. The provided software sorts the images and videos by the date, camera model and custom albums. With more NFC enabled cameras entering the market, the Canon Connect Station CS100 could prove a valuable addition to your gadget list. Canon will launch the storage station sometime in June 2015 for $299 (RM1070). No plans for a Malaysia release date have been announced so far.

Along with ASUS and Lenovo, Samsung also had a pretty busy start at CES 2015. The company unveiled a number of electronic appliances at the event including a new TV, Oven and a Washing machine.  Now, the South Korean giant has announced a new device in its first line of portable flash drives called thePortable SSD T1. The Portable SSD T1 flash drive will bring fast performance and high capacity to a product the size of a business card. It features a sleek black chrome finish and weighs just about 30 grams. Despite its tiny form factor, the highlight of the device is its transfer speeds, which Samsung claims can reach up to 450 MB per second. That's almost seven times faster than a traditional portable HDD. To put things into perspective, a 3GB movie will transfer in just eight seconds and a 10GB file in just 27 seconds with the above mentioned speed. Samsung offers three different storage variants for the T1 – 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. Prices range from $179 (RM637) to $599 (RM2130) depending upon the storage capacity. No Malaysia release dates yet but the device will be available for purchase in US, Europe and Asia by the end of January 2015.

In the past few months, one thing was established in the wearable industry – round watches are much more popular than square ones. Now, Alcatel wants to take advantage of this popularity with its newAlcatel OneTouch Watch. Apart from being round, the OneTouch watch is said to retail for less than $150 (RM533) which will make it cheaper than other round offerings such as the LG G Watch R and theMotorola Moto 360. The watch features a 1.22-inch near circular touchscreen display. There is a small black bar at the bottom like the Moto 360 which acts as the back button. The power button is located on the right side. Inside this 10.5mm thick stainless steel body, there is a STMicroelectronics STM429 chipset which powers the watch. The 210 mAh battery onboard can provide two to five days of run time on a single charge. Other features include an altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, e-compass, IP67 certification, heart rate monitor, activity tracker, sleep monitor, phone locator, phone camera remote and music control. The Alcatel OneTouch Watch runs on its own proprietary software instead of Google's Android Wear and is compatible with iOS and Android devices. Apart from the original black and red watch, there are other variants too like the all-white version and the premium all-metallic version. The original model will be available for less than $150 (RM533) and the other two versions for sub-$180 (RM640) price tag. Alcatel plans to launch all the three models in Q1 2015.

ZTE was also present at CES 2015 and announced an upgraded version of the existing ZTE Grand X Max phablet. The new ZTE Grand X Max+ offers modest upgrades in the processor, camera and storage departments, all for $200 (RM715). The new model features a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2GHz (instead of the old Snapdragon 200) with Adreno 305 GPU. There is twice the amount of RAM and storage inside. So, the Max+ comes with 2GB onboard RAM and 16GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 32GB. It retains the 6-inch display from the original Max with the same 720p resolution. This translates into a pixel density of 245 ppi which is quite low as compared to today's smartphone display standards. ZTE has upgraded the rear camera from 8MP to 13MP and there is a 5MP front shooter as well. The device will support high speed LTE networks and will run on Android 4.4 KitKat OS with ZTE's own UI on top. The company has not announced any details for a Malaysia release date of the device, but it will be available for sale in the US starting from 9 January 2015 for $200 (RM715).

On the first day of CES 2015, Samsung made only a handful of announcements, out of which none were smartphones. The next day, however, the South Korean giant announced two new mid-range devices – the Samsung Galaxy E7 and the Samsung Galaxy E5. Both the models take design inspiration from the existing Galaxy A lineup and come with an aluminum body. The tech specs are also similar to the A series models like the Galaxy A7 and Galaxy A5. The first model, the Galaxy E7 features a quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 2GB RAM and 16GB onboard expandable storage. On the front lies a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720p resolution. There is a 13MP camera at the back and a 5MP shooter on the front. The E7 comes with dual SIM card slots. A 2950 mAh battery powers the device. The second model, namely the Galaxy E5 will sport lower tech specs. The phone will come with a quad-core SoC clocked at 1.2GHz with 1.5GB RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. The 5-inch display will come with 720p resolution. The rear camera is of 8MP and the front camera measures 5MP. Like the E7, this particular device will also have dual SIM card slots. As for battery, a 2400 mAh capacity one will power these tech specs. Both the models run on Android 4.4 KitKat OS but Samsung has hinted at a Lollipop upgrade sometime later this year. The company has yet to announce details like Malaysia release dates and pricing, but the Galaxy E7 and Galaxy E5 are priced at $363 (RM1298) and $305 (RM1091) in India. 

A few weeks back, some reports cropped up online hinting at a new Android powered smartphone from Kodak at CES 2015. The news was true indeed as the company unveiled its first ever smartphone called the Kodak IM5 recently. The phone will bear the Kodak name, but will be built by a third-party manufacturer called as Bullit. Unlike earlier predictions, which said that the new Kodak device will feature some unique camera tech, the IM5 turns out to be another mid-range smartphone. It comes with an octa-core Mediatek MT6592 processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. This is the same configuration used by most cheap Android smartphones these days. There is a 5-inch display up front with 720p resolution. At the back, there is a 13MP rear camera and at the front, you have a 5MP shooter. Unfortunately, these cameras are pretty ordinary and there are very little customization options available to the user. The Kodak IM5 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS with a special UI developed in partnership with Bullit. This interface is reportedly simpler to use than stock Android and is aimed at first time smartphone users. The device is also quite cheap and will be available to retail for $249 (RM888) in US in Q1 2015. A Malaysia release date of the device is not expected anytime soon.

A few days before CES 2015, HTC had said that it would focus on the Desire lineup at the event held in Las Vegas. The company already announced the first Desire smartphone of the year, the Desire 320 and now, it has unveiled another Desire smartphone called as the HTC Desire 826. Unlike the entry level 320, this particular device will have top end tech specs. It also boasts of being the first HTC smartphone to run on Android 5.0 Lollipop OS out of the box. The HTC Desire 826 will be powered by a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. It sports a large 5.5-inch display with 1920 x 1080p resolution and features 13MP rear and 4MP Ultrapixel front cameras. These cameras are equipped with the special tools that were available on HTC Desire Eye selfie centric smartphone. Like most top end phones, the HTC Desire 826 comes with 4G LTE connectivity. As for the battery, the phone comes with a decent 2600 mAh battery onboard. HTC is yet to announce availability and pricing, but it is said that the phone will launch in China soon.

Along with the new Canon Connect Station CS100, the Japanese giant also unveiled a number of smart cameras and video recorders. In all, the company announced over eight devices at CES 2015 including new cameras in its PowerShot, ELPH and Vixia lineup. The company also added a photo printer in its Pixma range of affordable printers.  The new ranges of Canon devices are equipped with Wireless connectivity. Some in the PowerShot lineup even feature NFC. This helps them to connect with the company's newly launched CS100 media hub. The Canon PowerShot SX530 HS is the costliest of the lot and comes with 16MP sensor, 50x Optical Zoom, OIS, 1080p HD video support, high speed Autofocus and zoom framing assist. You get all these features for a $430 (RM1538) price tag. There are other cheaper models too in the range like the PowerShot SX710 HS and SX610 which feature 30x and 18x zoom and retail for $350 (RM1252) and $250 (RM894) respectively. In the PowerShot ELPH range, Canon added two new affordable models. Both feature 20MP sensors, 12X zoom and 720p video support. The costlier $150 (RM537) ELPH 170 IS model features OIS, which is not found in the $120 (RM429) ELPH 160 model. As for the Vixia video camera lineup, Canon has made three new additions. The costlier VIXIA HF R62 features a larger battery and retails for $430 (RM1538) as opposed to the $400 (RM1430) VIXIA R60. Finally, the VIXIA HF R600 is the cheapest of the lot at $300 (RM1073). Canon has managed to reduce the price by removing wireless connectivity in this model. The company also unveiled a $100 (RM357) Pixma photo printer MX492at the event which wirelessly connects to smartphones and computers.

Garmin is a world renowned company specializing in GPS navigation products. The company is now shifting its focus to a hot new industry – wearables, as it recently announced three new smartwatches at CES 2015 in Las Vegas. First in the lot is the Garmin Vivoactive, which is also the company's first dedicated smartwatch. It comes with a square design like the LG G Watch and features the company's first app market called as the Connect IQ. The Vivoactive can display a number of information right on its small touchscreen display like emails, texts, social media interactions, calendar, reminders and missed calls. It can track distance as well as speed, thanks to the in-built GPS radio. The onboard battery typically lasts for three weeks…

Samsung Malaysia recently launched their Samsung Galaxy A5 and Samsung Galaxy A3 smartphones. Aimed at the young and trendy, the new smartphones feature a metal unibody chassis with ultra-slim design. With the Galaxy A3 priced at RM899 and the Galaxy A5 going for RM1199, these should make for an attractive and reasonably affordable device for the young Malaysian user. As such, Samsung have included a number of selfie centric features such as wide-selfies and palm, voice and audio activated selfies to take advantage of the 5MP front camera avalable in all of these smartphones. Both the Galaxy A5 and A3 will be available in Malaysia starting from 9 January 2015. The higher-end Samsung Galaxy A7 is expected to come in February 2015 for a retail price of RM1499. There will also be a Bestnya Bersama music campaign featuring the Samsung Galaxy A series soon. In the meantime, do check out our hands-on pictures, tech specs and videos below:

• Samsung Galaxy A5
• 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB storage + up to 64GB microSD
• 5-inch Super AMOLED display (720 x 1280 pixel resolution, 294 ppi pixel density)
• 13MP rear camera (autofocus, LED flash) + 5MP front camera
• 139.3  x  69.7  x  6.7 mm | 123g
• supports 4G LTE, NFC, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, A-GPS
• Android 4.4.4 KitKat
• 2300 mAh battery

• Samsung Galaxy A3
• 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB storage + up to 64GB microSD
• 4.5-inch Super AMOLED display (540 x 960 pixel resolution, 245 ppi pixel density)
• 8MP rear camera (autofocus, LED flash) + 5MP front camera
• 130.1  x  65.5  x  6.9 mm | 110.3g
• supports 4G LTE, NFC, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, A-GPS
• Android 4.4.4 KitKat
• 1900 mAh battery