IFA 2019: Get ready for one very unusual tech show

There's going to be an odd vibe at the IFA Berlin trade show next week. 

IFA, which officially kicks off Sept. 6 but in reality starts two days earlier, is primarily an audio and video consumer electronics show, and nothing will change in that regard. We'll still see a bunch of huge, fancy TVs, wireless headphones, wearables, and VR/AR gadgets. 

But the show is also a launchpad for new smartphones, often from giants such as Samsung, Huawei, and LG. That's happening this year, too, but there's never been so many unknowns only days before the show.

This year's trend: The Latephone

Take Huawei, for example. The company will have a press event and it will show some products, though it's unlikely that it will launch its upcoming flagship, the Huawei Mate 30. Even if it did, who knows which version of it we'd see; just yesterday, Google said the company would have to launch that phone without Google Play, which would make it near-unusable in Europe or the U.S. Read more...