Chip Chick
There’s probably no higher praise we can give a gadget than putting it in our backpack come CES. It’s arguably the biggest and most grueling week of the year for tech media, and sets the tone for the entire year that follows for the whole consumer electronics industry. We find out who the trend-setters are going to be, what a lot of the big players will be doing, and which newcomers we need to watch out for. So, if we’re going to take something along with us to Vegas, we’re going to need things that we know, without a doubt, are going to hold up and get the job done. So, here’s what we trust to get us through CES week (relatively) unscathed.
Incipio Asher Backpack
Why not start off with the backpack itself? The Asher Backpack is made of woven nylon, and while we’re not thinking we’re going to get much rain in the desert, it’s always nice to have a waterproof backpack for general purposes. More importantly, it’s nice to have a cavernous backpack with ample padding and separate compartments and quick-access pockets for devices of all sizes. We’re going to need something that can keep the rest of this list in one piece through all the jostling and bumping of CES. And there will be jostling and bumping.
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
If you want proof that tablets aren’t going to replace laptops anytime soon, you can just look at last year’s sales numbers. If quarterly statements aren’t your idea of a good time, just keep in mind that blogging is a profession now, and one that definitely isn’t going to get done on a tablet. So, we’ll need our laptops, but if we’re going to be traipsing up and down the strip all week, we’ll go with something that won’t induce back spasms. Like, say, the lightest and thinnest notebook on the market. And no, it’s not the MacBook Air anymore—it’s the Yoga 3 Pro, something that has the extra advantage of being a convertible 2-in-1 device.
Germ-X
Hygiene is probably not emphasized enough at CES. And so, we’ll have Germ-X in our backpacks. Basically, it’s going to be the other eight things on this list going in first, with any remaining space dedicated to as many bottles of Germ-X as we can fit. We will prevail over the germs this year, or get bedridden trying.
Emergen-C
We’re not going all-in on the hand sanitizer. Seeing as how we’re going to be playing a week-long game of sardines, we’re going to be doing as much as we can to stave off whatever plague is spawned by CES 2015. And before you’re like ‘hey, you guys know Emergen-C is a bunch of crap, right?,’ we know. But there is definitely vitamin C in Emergen-C, and we can put that vitamin C into our pockets and then put it into the little pixie cups of water we’ll find scattered around, and it’ll be that much more protection against what we hope isn’t the inevitable. If nothing else, there’s always the placebo effect.
Water Bottle
Like, any water bottle (as long as it’s BPA freeeeeee)—partly because it’s the desert and we need to stay hydrated, but also because I would sooner go searching for an oasis than pay whatever a Las Vegas casino charges for bottled water. A non-negotiable staple.
Incipio offGRID Portable Backup Battery
There will be charging stations at CES. A lot of people will be lining up to use those charging stations, and charging stations are not Disneyland rides. Instead, we’ll be packing the Incipio offGRID, which has a 4,000 mAh battery that will charge our phones about twice over. Why this battery pack over all the others? Well, this one actually has Qi wireless charging built in, which is pretty sweet for those of us who have Qi-enabled smartphones.
Spearmint Altoids
Altoids, because if I’ve got the choice between five extra minutes of sleep during CES week and brushing my teeth, sorry world, but I know what I’m choosing. Also handy when running into others who have had to make the same choice. I’d also say we could crush them up into powder and try to make ourselves look like the coolest partiers, but I saw a kid snort Altoid powder one time in high school, and it wasn’t cool at all.
Incipio NX-308 F88 Hi Fi Stereo Earbuds
Much as we’d love to always use our expensive audiophile headphones, CES isn’t the scene. We need something we can pop into our ears quickly and shove into our pockets if need be, and the Incipio NX-308 earbuds fit the bill. Oh, and they come in a pretty sweet shade of purple.
Sony Action Cam Mini
What happens in Vegas is going to stay in both Vegas and our hard drives. Yeah, the Sony Action Cam Mini was made with extreme sports in mind, but we’d like to think navigating the strip during the world’s biggest consumer electronics show qualifies. The image stabilization will be pretty handy when day turns to night, too. Because, you know, reasons.
