A look at Microsoft's Partner Showcase at CES 2018

As usual, Microsoft didn't hold any public events at CES 2018. It did, however, have a showcase event where it displayed devices that are made by its partners, along with some first-party devices like Surface and Xbox. Of course, none of the first-party devices are actually new.

Naturally, HP's new Spectre 15 x360 and Dell's XPS 15 2-in-1 were on display. Those are the first new PCs to use Intel's newly-announced H-series processors that include dedicated AMD Radeon graphics. The new chips allow for performance previously reserved for thicker and heavier laptops to fit in slimmer profiles such as convertibles.

Lenovo's new Miix 630 was there as well. That was the only Qualcomm-powered PC that was unveiled during the event. It's a tablet with an attachable keyboard that runs Windows 10 S. Naturally, a Windows 10 Pro upgrade is free for 180 days from activation.

But PCs weren't all that was there. Huawei's Mate 10 Pro and Honor View 10 made an appearance, due to the fact that Microsoft developed a custom Translator app that makes use of the Neural Processing Unit in the Kirin 970 chipset.

HP's Z 3D Camera allows you to turn any PC into a 3D scanner, borrowing some functionality from the company's Sprout desktop. We got a comprehensive demo of how that works, and it seems pretty interesting for those that are into that sort of thing.

Check out the showcase below:

And there's one more thing. We split it out into a separate video, but Johnson Controls' GLAS smart thermostat was on display, and I got to play around with it. It's a translucent thermostat that runs Windows 10 IoT Core, so it includes Cortana, and it's just beautiful.