On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Ceconomy, the parent company of MediaMarkt and Saturn, delays plans to form a partnership with Fnac Darty, since it first wants to find a solution for ongoing financial troubles.

“We have hit pause,” the retailer tells Reuters.

The two retailers announced plans for a purchasing alliance back in May 2018. Dubbed a "European Retail Alliance," the aim of the partnership was to bring further efficiencies through strategic agreements with key suppliers, private label sourcing, licensing agreements and data collaboration activities. The result, the two retailers hoped, would bring about a network open for CE retailers across Europe, one leading to exclusive products and services.

Sony is not one to be left out of the 8K TV race as it presents a massive high-resolution display at CES 2019-- the Z9G 8K LCD TV, available in 85- and 98-inch sizes holding no less than 33 million pixels.

Part of the Master Series, the Z9G promises "the pinnacle of picture quality," with the latest Picture Processor X1 Ultimate image procesor and X-Reality PRO technology ensuring all content, regardless of native resolution, looks at its best. To do so, the TVs also use "a unique algorithm specially developed for 8K that can intelligently detect and analyse each object in the picture, resulting in exceptional detail and contrast for a more realistic picture that represents the creators’ intent.”

Samsung announces the date for the next Unpacked event in spectacular fashion as it installs huge billboards across Paris bearing characters in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Translated, the billboards read "The Future Unfolds" and "February Twentieth."

The event takes place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, and is set to "user in new Galaxy experiences based on 10 years of innovation." The S. Korean company will very probably use the event to launch the next Galaxy S device, the S10, one rumoured to be shipping in three variants.

Mobvoi announces a pair of additions to the Ticwatch smartwatch range at CES 2019-- the E2 and S2, both featuring a number of design tweaks together with TicMotion, a means to automatically detect different motions and trigger different functions.

For the uninitiated, the E2 and S2 respectively stand for Express and Sport, and are sequels to a pair of Android Wear smartwatches launched back in 2015. The updates run on Wear OS, and carry a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, a 1.39-inch circular AMOLED display and a 415mAh battery, as well as standard features such as an accelerometer, gyroscope and heart-rate sensor.