IFA 2024: The Gear We're Using To Bring Berlin's Tech Scene To Your Screen

Trade shows can always be a challenge to cover. In the specific case of IFA 2024, not only are you hitting the show floor and running around like a madman, but you're also doing so in a foreign city, which can be equally daunting. The only way you can make it through is by carefully selecting the proper gear that will serve specific functions that will aid our coverage on the show floor and once you retreat back to your hotel room to write. Or, you can randomly throw all of your tech into a bag and hope for the best. This year, Adam Doud and Dave McQuilling did a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

It's impossible to anticipate all the issues that can come up while you're on the road and away from your home. So, the best thing you can do is bring along the tech you know you'll use and try to save as much space in your bag for souvenirs on the way home. That's why Adam and Dave rounded up the tech they'll be using to cover IFA 2024 in Berlin.

First, when you're hitting the show floor, you'll want to have reliable tech with you at all times to keep you going. On the phone front, Adam is dual-wielding the Google Pixel Fold and the iPhone 15 Pro. Both phones can last all day, have a great set of cameras, and are useful in their particular niches. The Pixel Fold's immense screen is great for checking the schedule of upcoming events while the iPhone handles most communications tasks using a combination of Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, and more.

Also along for the ride is Adam's bag for the trip — the Filios Messenger Bag from White Duck Outdoors. This is a canvas bag with a large main pocket and gigantic secondary pockets that ring the outside of the bag. Adam can keep a bottle of water handy since the bag can accommodate that in the front without affecting the bag's ability to close. It even has a handle that allows you to slide the bag on to your suitcase. Unfortunately, the bag only has a Velcro enclosure for staying shut. That's a weak point, for sure, but the bag can hold a 16-inch laptop in its laptop sleeve. That is not nothing.

Meanwhile, the laptop that Adam will be using to cover the show was also announced at the show — the ASUS Vivobook S 15, which features Qualcomm's newest announcement, the Snapdragon X Plus processor. This is a step-down from the Snapdragon X Elite processor announced last year and launched in June. But it's designed for reliability and great battery life, both of which will be desperately hard to come by on a trade show floor — even if it the laptop itself is a fingerprint magnet.

The laptop is extremely lightweight and can last all day thanks to its new processor. The rest of the laptop is fairly standard ASUS material — RGB backlighting and all. The laptop has a lot of ports on it including HDMI, 2 USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports. The keyboard feels wonderful to type with and the full number pad on the right fits in nicely with the aesthetic. The laptop is thin and light, and is one of two Snapdragon X Plus laptops that ASUS is launching this year — the other is the ProArt PZ13, which is more of a Microsoft Surface (11th generation) clone.

Finally, Adam needs to keep all this tech charged up and running while working in a country with completely different power requirements. To that end, Adam is bringing along his Tessan universal travel adapter and his Infinicore P3 battery pack. The former is a simple adapter that comes with an EU plug, U.K. plug, and U.S./Australia plug. Just slide down the lever of your power needs and plug it in. The adapter comes with five USB ports: two USB-A and three USB-C. Additionally, you can plug any of those into the face of this adapter, meaning you can use a U.S. laptop charger in the U.K., a U.K. power plug in the EU, and more.

The second device is the Infinicore P3 power pack, which you can buy with travel adapters that slide on over the U.S. standard plug. The really nice thing is, this battery pack supports pass through charging, which means you can plug this into the wall and then use the USB-C and two USB-A ports while the battery is charging. When it's time to go out, you can take the 8,000 mAh battery along with you.

Smartphones are pretty amazing things. Back when Dave started out in journalism, you had to bring a dumb phone to an event along with a camera, dictaphone, notepad, laptop, internet dongle, and probably a few other things dependent on the exact gig. Now your phone does pretty much everything, which is why Dave felt confident rocking up at the likes of IFA armed with nothing but his daily driver — a Pixel 7 Pro. 

Dave does tend to bring a laptop as well, as it's a lot more comfortable to type on a standard keyboard than a smartphone. Plus, phone-based word processing tends to be absolutely awful. Dave's weapon of choice is currently the Honor MagicBook Art 14 — and it's accompanied by a couple of other Honor products he happens to be reviewing. Namely the Magic Pad 2 and Magic V3. So that's two phones, a tablet, and a laptop. The second phone is partially there because he's reviewing it, but a backup is always handy in case you lose your primary device.

As far as extra items go, Dave has a single power bank. This is pretty ill advised, as you really can't have too many of those things at this kind of event. In his defense though, other tech can be used to charge his phone in a pinch, including the Honor Magic Pad 2 which has served as a battery donor on two occasions so far. Dave's bag also contains a couple of charging bricks, a plug adapter, and several USB A-to-C and C-to-C cables (another thing you can't really have too many of). 

And if Dave finds himself stuck, he can always bother the very well-prepared Mr. Doud for a loan. Your most important travel accessory is the company you keep, so try to hang around with the well-organized folks!