The line for the Pansonic Press conference stretched into rows across a massive hall leading to the Mandalay Conference room. After piling into the standing-room-only hall, we were given a salesman-like pitch by Panasonic’s North American President of Consumer Marketing, Shiro Kitajima, as well as VP of Marketing Vic Carlson. The two executive’s took us on a relatively quick tour of Panasonic’s new product line for 2013, as well as introducing some new partnerships with companies like Youtube and HSN.
Smart TVs and HSN
Panasonic’s new TV line-up lacked the panache we’ve seen so far at CES from competitors like Sharp, LG, and Toshiba. The company did, however, reveal a wide variety of Smart TV models equipped with Wi-Fi, HD 3D, and other streaming capabilities. Panasonic also showed off some new toys that add some intuitive features to their smart TV technology including: a refresh to their “Swipe and Share” picture and video sharing system, a voice interactive remote control, and even a cool new system that allows you to use a “Touch Pen” to write memo’s on your HDTV … in case you wanted to write memo’s on your HDTV. In addition to their new TV models, Panasonic announced it’s partnership with HSN by unveiling a brand new interactive shopping system. The new system allows you to watch HSN interactively to shop, look at reviews, and purchase items all from your Panasonic Smart Viera TV.
Sound and stream
We’re excited to get a closer look at some of Panasonic’s new audio devices, including their RP-BTGS10″bone conducting” Bluetooth headphones, which supposedly use bones in the skull to deliver an ambient signal to the ears. We’ll have to test them to get a closer look at what exactly this means (and sounds like), but it’s an interesting technology that has us very curious. Panasonic also has added a wave of new Bluetooth connected audio systems and USB docks to it’s CES lineup this year, including the SL-NP10 tablet dock, and iPhone 5-ready players like the SC-NE5.
For those who don’t have the means to shell out the cash for a smart TV, Panasonic has two new Wi-Fi media players: the 3D capable MST60, and the MST10. Both players allow streaming from all the usual big names like Netflix and Hulu, as well as easy connectivity to your smartphone to share media across platforms. All of the new audio and video devices will be available in March of this year, so we’ll be sure and take a deeper look over the next week here at CES to see how they stack-up. We’ll also try and get a price breakdown for some of this new gear as soon as possible.
What we’re looking forward to
It seems like we’ve only been given a quick sneak peak at what Panasonic will be offering this year at CES. We’re excited to get a closer look at their new smart TVs, and we’re really curious to know what bone-conducted music will sound like. Still, we hope to be a bit more wowed at their booth, especially if they want to keep up with the vast array of new technologies we’ve seen from the competition. As always, we’ll let you know what else pops-up from Panasonic over the duration of CES that’s worth checking out as soon as we do.
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