From stunning LED televisions to phones you wear on the wrist, we've rounded up the real jewels from this year's show.
There are a lot of unbelievable products at every Consumer Electronics Show – and a lot of buzz over nothing thanks to some clever PR, too. We’ve separated the wheat from the chaff to deliver the top 10 most impressive products from this year’s show, and there’s a lot to get excited about.
TomTom GO 740
A wireless modem within allows the TomTom GO 740 to link up with TomTom’s servers for access to everything from weather and gas prices to localized Google POI searches. Even better, it taps into traffic information fed from other live GPS devices, letting TomTom layer that information on top of conventional traffic feeds.
iRiver Wave Home
Computers are creeping into every corner of the home, and iRiver’s aptly named Wave Home is proof. It combines a VoIP phone, video conferencing, media streaming, Web surfing, alarms, calendars and a whole host of other features into a package that would look at home in the living room, kitchen or bedroom.
iRiver Wave Home
LG BD390 Blu-ray Player
Now that BD-Live capability is almost the status quo for new Blu-ray Players, companies are going farther out of the way to make their players stand out, and LG has outdone itself with the BD390. Like the previous BD300, it will stream Netflix movies, but LG has also added YouTube and CinemaNow for more content, built-in Wi-Fi, 1GB of internal memory, and 7.1-channel audio output. We’re thinking this will be the player to own for early 2009.
Sony P Series Notebook
Whether or not you want to call it a netbook, this ultra-slim little laptop amazed us with an incredibly sharp display, a featherweight chassis, and even enough computational fortitude to run Windows Vista. The $900 price tag still hurts a bit, but so far, it looks like you get what you pay for.
Sony P Series Notebook
LG 3G Watch Phone
LG isn’t the first company to package a phone into a watch, but this one might be the first that anyone would ever actually want to own. Besides 3G Internet access, LG has given it the ability to recognize voice commands for easier use from the wrist, a beautiful LCD touch screen, and put its top-notch designers to work to give it a sleek, modern look.
LG 3G Watch Phone
Asus Eee Keyboard
Yes, it’s a keyboard with an entire PC, and screen, built right in. Hook it up to an HDTV and suddenly you have a 50-inch monitor with a 5-inch mini display right at your side. The home theater implications are endless.
HP Firebird Gaming PC
Performance meets efficiency. Though we could have predicted HP would drop another killer gaming rig for CES this year, we would not have expected the company to abandon the watt-guzzling design ethic of previous systems and actually try to green up the series with performance parts designed for notebooks. It’s not just light on your electricity bill, either: The $1,799 starting price tag is surprisingly affordable for a gaming PC.
HP Firebird Gaming PC
Windows 7
No, it wasn’t a true CES unveiling, but the things we saw Windows 7 do at the show truly got us excited about its future. From its vastly revamped Media Center features to its multi-touch support and new taskbar, we’re anxiously awaiting its release in 2009. Microsoft’s generous open beta is sure to drive excitement for it, too.
Toshiba SV670
Every company was rolling out LED-backlit TVs this year, but Toshiba’s seemed to offer the best combination of style and performance. By placing the LEDs in a grid behind the screen rather than at its edges, Toshiba was able to accomplish “localized dimming,” which shuts down the LEDs in dark parts of the screen for superior black levels. The “Infinity Flush” design that puts the bezel and LCD panel on the same seamless glass plane looks very slick too, and 240Hz refresh rates made even fast-motion scenes silky smooth.
Toshiba SV670
Palm Pre
Hands down the most exciting product we saw at this year’s show was Palm’s new Pre smartphone, which will use its long-awaited WebOS mobile operating system. Palm’s presentation for the device drew massive applause as designers showed off its QWERTY keyboard, gesture-based navigation, and ability to switch between apps absolutely seamlessly. Constant “better than the iPhone” comparisons let you know just how big this phone might really be. Between Apple, Google and Palm, it will be an interesting year for smartphone users.
