This years CES brought close to 140,000 visitors enjoying 2,700 displays of awesome. It was truly a geek central and an experience like no other. With so many booths, tech displays, 200+ sessions and almost 1000 speakers it was hard to see and hear everything. All that makes it hard to pick your favourite gadget or technology, so here are five.
1. Tablets
You could pick from over 80 tablets, ranging from 7” to 14”. Most had front and back cameras. Many featured slider keyboards, dock frames with keyboard or bluetooth keyboards. Some had touch and precise pen input. A couple even had dual screen setups. They were running anything from Android 2.2, Android 3.0, Windows 7, Linux to Blackberry QNX. Many were designated for 4G networks and were packing some serious power under the hood. Most notable were Dell Streak 7, LG G-Slate, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia, ASUS Eee Pad, but my favourite was Motorola Xoom. It featured NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual-Core Processor and Android 3.0 Honeycomb system with all the Google love you can handle.
2. Smartphones
2011 CES was definitely about smarter and faster phones. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile presented their 4G lineup. Many of the phones had some heavy duty features like: HDMI, Autofocus 8MP Cameras, AMOLED screens, HD Video recording/playback, Dolby Surround and more…
Top picks:
Motorola Atrix (AT&T)
Samsung Infuse 4G (AT&T)
Motorola Droid Bionic (Verizon)
Samsung 4G LTE (Verizon)
LG Revolution (Verizon)
HTC Evo Shift (Sprint)
Motorola Cliq 2 (T-Mobile)
My favourite was Motorola Atrix. In part because of the cool docking station that doubled as a netbook and in part because of the snappy 1GHz Dual-Core processor and HD Video Playback streaming option.
3. Android everywhere
Approximately 70% of devices at CES were Android powered. Anything from phones, tablets, netbooks, and TVs, to cars, clock radios, printers and Android-powered headphones. A staggering 300,000 Android devices are sold every day. Google had already outsold Apple in May of last year.
The newest implementation of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) has some significant improvements to the graphic interface and the code. Honeycomb is now allowing for all keys on the device to be software based (Touch Screen) and has improved multitasking among other things. Android design team is working hard to bring the simplest and most functional user interface to the Android powered devices regardless of what the device can be.
My favourite Adroid device… the Google TV. (Although it’s not likely to be seen any time soon.)
4. 3D TVs
Speaking of TVs, I saw so many 3D TVs at CES that after a while it felt like everything was flying in my face. Many booths had more than just one kind of 3D TV. In short there are: Stereoscopic, which use glasses, and Autostereoscopic that don’t use glasses. The Stereoscopic field divides even futher based upon the type of glasses used. There are Active shutter glasses which = lots of flickering, and Polarized glasses that are more the cinema type with no flickering. From all the stereoscopic TVs – LG’s were the absolute winner! Not to mention that the rest of their TV lineup was also stunning.
While it might seem that the tvs that DON’T require glasses are clearly the way to go, autostereoscopic TVs use a lentical lens system in a form of a see-through layer applied directly on the screen. I actually found this most annoying of all. They all were blurry and required you to stand exactly in one place. If you moved or tilted your head the image become fuzzy. I’m excited to see where the future will take this type of display but as it stands right now it’s a no go!
5. Connected Devices
Many manufacturers focused on connecting their wide range of devices and make them talk to each other. The most common were home electronics, mobile electronics and car infotainment systems. But the coolest ones were connected home appliances. LG and Kenmore showed their line of connected oven, fridge, washer and dryer. All of them talked to your smartphone or tablet. You could get recipes on the oven screen, see what is inside your fridge, check when it expires and schedule washer /dryer cycles based on real-time smart meter data utilizing the changing electricity prices during the day.
That’s my top 5 but there was much, much more. It was impossible to see it all! Next year’s CES is brewing to be even bigger and hopes are it will be organized better.
Amo is a Motion Design Director in our Calgary office.
