Those aren’t really the specs for the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it sure feels like it. C.E.S. is the largest (and most exhausting) trade show in North America, and most of the people who attend it — exclusively media and electronics-industry personnel — approach C.E.S. with queasy dread. You emerge from each day with aching feet, a pocket full of business cards and a craving for food that hasn’t been reconstituted, thawed and overpriced.
You also emerge with a sneak peek at the product-release timeline for the year ahead. Lots of companies make new-product announcements here, even six or eight months before the products show up in stores.
C.E.S. 2008 offered few big announcements that got everybody buzzing. Part of the reason may be that some of the most interesting players — the cellphone makers, the camera makers and
Apple — have their own trade shows in the next month or two.
In any case, this week’s show looked and felt pretty much the same as always: hundreds of big flat-screen TVs, glass display cases gleaming with shiny cellphones and a whole building filled with car tech.
In fact, it would probably take you at least half an hour to realize that you were not attending C.E.S. 2007. (One giveaway: last year, Panasonic claimed that its 103-inch plasma set was the world’s largest TV. This year, Panasonic took that honor with its 150-inch model.)
Still, if you wandered around and asked enough questions, you might have learned that a number of great ideas wait in 2008’s wings. In order to spare you the $350-a-night hotel bills and 25 miles of walking, here’s a summary of some of the most interesting developments-in-waiting that I had the chance to play with.
SONY XEL-1. This tiny, 11-inch TV is the closest thing C.E.S. had to a blockbuster. When you learn that it costs $2,500, you might wonder why. But when you see it, you’ll understand.
It’s the thinnest TV on earth (three millimeters), and the picture is breathtakingly spectacular. Its color range is far superior to any other TV technology, and so is its contrast ratio: a million to one (compared with 20,000 to 1 on a typical plasma). You just can’t get past the astonishing, real, liquid, vivid look of this screen.
It’s an O.L.E.D. screen, a new technology with low power consumption and no motion ghosting. In time, the size will go up and the price will go down. Get psyched. (Available now, $2,500.)
PARROT DF7700 DIGITAL PICTURE FRAME. Digital picture frames — essentially tiny computer monitors — are perennial favorites among gift-givers, but loading photos onto them is a perennial headache for the technologically challenged. This model, however, has its own cellular phone number; the point is that you can send pictures from your cameraphone directly to its 7-inch screen from anywhere in the world.
The upside is that now the burden of supplying photos falls on you, the technically proficient (and generous) gift giver. The downside is the monthly cellular fee — a first for a picture frame. (Price and release date to be determined).
PANASONIC DVD-LS86. This one may be the biggest magic trick of the show. It’s a portable 8.5-inch DVD player that can play movies for — are you ready for this? — 13 hours on a battery charge. That’s long enough for six or seven standard movies, or once through “Transformers.”
And yet this player doesn’t look like a military field case. Apart from a slightly thicker hinge, it’s no bulkier than any player. How did they do that? ($200, available now).
GARMIN NUVI 800. Lots of companies introduced G.P.S. units at this show, including some that you might associate with G.P.S. (like Sony,
Hewlett-Packard, LG and Panasonic).
But Garmin’s new top-of-the-line car unit comes with speech recognition that’s far more advanced than what’s come before.
You can say, for example, “Find nearest Chinese food” to produce a list of nearby Chinese restaurants; then you can say “line 2” to select your favorite in the resulting list. You can also speak the address of your destination, without having to lean forward and tap it onto an on-screen keyboard.
So how do you prevent the sounds of everyday conversation (or, worse, radio talk shows) from randomly reprogramming your G.P.S. destination? The Nuvi comes with a tiny remote control that straps onto your steering wheel. It has only two buttons: Listen and Stop Listening. (Second-quarter 2008, $1,000).
