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

Bang & Olufsen presents a luxury take on the smart speaker-- the Beosound Balance, a number designed in collaboration with British agency Layer with a look "inspired by interior objects."

The Balance stands 38cm tall, and consists of a typical cylindrical speaker on top of a oak wood base. The speaker is covered in fabric mesh, and carries two 5.25-inch bass drivers, two 2-inch full-range drivers, one 3/4-inch tweeter and two 3-inch full-range drivers acting as "sound enhancers." It also includes Chromecast Audio and Google Assistant support, together with AirPlay 2, Bluetooth and analog line-in connectivity.

Global smartphone sales to end users are down by -0.4% Y-o-Y in Q4 2019, Gartner reports. Sales are also on the decline for overall 2019 as they contract by -1%, a "little bit better" than the analyst expected.

Apple and Xiaomi are the only two vendors in the top 5 to see growth in Q4 2019, even if Samsung maintains the top position with 17.3% market share despite a slight -0.5% Y-o-Y sales decline. The S. Korean giant also remains on top for full-year 2019, with sales growing by 0.4% to 296.2 million units. The company managed to revamp its midtier and entry-level smartphone offering in 2019, and in 2020 will be butting heads with the likes of Huawei in high-end foldable devices.

A 6 March event has Oppo announce the self-explanatory Watch, a long-leaked smartwatch featuring a curved AMOLED display and a design very reminiscent of the Apple Watch, down to the integrated silicon bands.

The Oppo Watch display comes in 1.6- and 1.9-inch sizes (around 41 and 64mm), and offers 402 x 473 resolution. It comes inside an aluminium frame with a curved glass cover, and is 4.5mm thick, making it thinner than the Apple Watch. The smartwatch offers fairly typical features, such as fitness tracking, ECG-based heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking and music playback, as well as eSIM-based cellular connectivity allowing for voice calls and internet access.

Konami delays the launch of its take on the miniature console, the PC Engine Core Grafx Mini (aka the TurboGrafx-16 Mini in the US)-- and the reason is, as you might have guessed, the coronavirus (aka Covid-19).

According to a statement from the Japanese games maker, manufacturing and shipping facilities in China are currently in "unavoidable suspension" due to the virus outbreak. As a result, the mini console and all related accessories are "delayed until further notice."