Historically, the Consumer Electronics Show hasn't been a place where we'd find a ton of new laptops, desktops, or computer components. After all, PC makers had Comdex (a now-defunct Vegas trade show), and are generally more interested in hitting the back-to-school and holiday seasons than releasing new products in January.
Still, this year was a decent one for new introductions, and almost every major name in the computer business had a handful of new products to show off. Most were more evolutionary than revolutionary, but when you're dealing with essentially the same small pile of CPUs, GPUs, hard drives, and chipsets, anything that breaks away from the commoditization of PCs is a plus.
HP's Firebird desktop continues the integration of HP and its boutique brand acquisition, Voodoo. The system has the distinct look of a high-end Voodoo PC, but is branded as being "HP with Voodoo DNA," and carries a relatively mainstream price.
We also liked HP's Mini 2140 Netbook. In a field already crowded with essentially identical competitors, the brushed metal design and ExpressCard/54 slot are welcome points of differentiation.
Other players who tried to take the basic Netbook concept and improve on it include Sony, whose Atom-powered Lifestyle PC is an upscale take on the mini-laptop; Asus, with a swiveling touch-screen version of the popular Eee PC; and AMD, with the new Athlon Neo platform--essentially a low-price midpoint between Netbooks and mainstream laptops. (AMD also has a new desktop gaming platform called Dragon).
Interestingly, one of the most interesting laptops at CES made only a cameo appearance. Dell's slim Adamo was officially announced, and briefly glimpsed, but no real details or hands-on time were forthcoming. Contrary to earlier rumors, the Adamo looked a lot more like Voodoo's Envy 13-inch than the MacBook Air.
Perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise was the warm reception Windows 7 received, despite not really having a big push at the show. Beta testers reported that the upcoming operating system scales very well to low-end Netbooks (which just plain don't work well with Vista), meaning that growing category might have a very big future.
Intel's WiFi PAN management interface at the CES 2009 demo.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)I love my hotel room in Las Vegas. Great view! Very fast Internet access. However, the hotel controls and charges for access to the Internet by IP address. This means I have to keep my iPhone from getting connected unless I want to pay for another connection plan, in addition to the one used for my laptop.
This, however, is going to change next CES thanks to a new Wi-Fi technology that Intel announced this year.
It's called My WiFi and it is a wireless driver and software update to Intel's Centrino 2 processor-based laptops. This software allows the computer's built-in wireless networking chip to create a separate Wi-Fi personal Area Network (PAN). This network allows up to eight other Wi-Fi Certified wireless clients to connect to it, while the computer is still connected to a separate access point, the way any computer with built-in wireless networking does now.
This dual-interface is possible thanks to Intel's 5100 Wi-Fi and Intel's 5300 Wi-Fi Link adapters that can manage both Wireless LAN and Wi-Fi PAN connections at the same time.
The PAN has its own HDCP server and supports Windows' Internet Connection Sharing, meaning that if my laptop is connected to the Internet through the hotel's service, it can share that connection wirelessly with eight other Wi-Fi clients without the knowledge of the hotel.
Sharing the Internet (whether you want to be sneaky as in my above example or not) is, of course, not the only offering of My WiFi. The technology enables users to simultaneously connect their laptops to multiple other peripheral devices, such as printers, photo frames, and cameras without a need for an access point or a wireless router.
Current Wi-Fi laptops can also do this by putting the wireless adapter in ad-hoc mode, but that is very limited. An ad-hoc connection allows a laptop to connect to one wireless device at a time and no access to an access point or wireless router at the same time.
Intel's My WiFi technology supports multiple types of security protocols, including WEP, WPA, and WPA2. It also supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a technology that lets you add wireless clients to a network quickly without having to manually entering the encryption key.
The deployment of My WiFi depends on vendors, but you can expect to find this as a free update to any laptop computer that run Intel's Centrino 2 processor by the second quarter of this year.
In the meantime, you can also do this a little less conveniently with an add-in travel router such as the Windy31.
We managed to be among the very first to snag a coveted Sony Vaio Lifestyle PC, so here are a couple of in-the-wild photos, plus some first hands-on impressions.
Despite the small overall size, we found the keyboard fairly easy to use. At first, the lack of a touchpad worried us, but the trackpoint was fast and responsive, and after 15 minutes or so, we got fairly used to navigating with it--a very light tap on the pointing stick will give you a left mouse click. We're still not entirely sold, however, and still think a touchpad is better for many tasks.
The 1,600x768 screen has a higher resolution than many 15-inch laptops. Some initial attempts at online video streaming played fine, and the built-in Verizon-powered mobile broadband worked as advertised.
Even with Vista as the operating system, the Vaio seemed to run about as well as any Intel Atom system with XP we've used (2GB of RAM and an SSD hard drive help). With Windows 7, purportedly excellent for Netbooks, it would probably fly (relatively speaking).
It's hard to convey just how small this thing actually is. In the photos below, you'll see it positively dwarfed by an HP Mini 1000. ... Read more
It's time for an update to the tiny GPUs that let your laptop watch HD videos and play World of Warcraft. AMD is looking to snag a bigger slice of the mobile graphics pie with a new series of ATI Mobility Radeon chips, called the HD4000 series. They offer Microsoft DirectX 10.1 support and the highest-end versions support GDDR5 memory.
Those break down into four categories, which are (with AMD's description of each):
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4800 Series: For gaming enthusiasts
>Amazing Graphics Horsepower for extreme HD Gamers
>World's most powerful mobile GPU, breaks the TeraFlops barrier
>World's First Mobile GPU supporting GDDR5 memory
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4600 Series: Optimized for high-performance thin systems
>Multimedia Powerhouse delivering intense HD Entertainment
>Redefine HD Gaming for Performance Thin Notebooks
>Phenomenal Performance Per Watt
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4300 and 4500 Series: HD performance for mainstream systems plus Low-power for thin and light laptops
>Optimal design and power for Ultra-Thin Notebooks
>Spectacular full HD 1080p video and audio support
>Breakthrough Energy Efficiency for Long Battery Life
... Read more
Is Sony referring to a Netbook here?
CES 2009 is fast approaching, and rumors of new laptops are everywhere. This week though, the focus is on Sony.
Though enterprising news outlets have dug up hints at new products from the likes of Dell and Lenovo weeks before the big gadget exhibition, Sony is outing itself as having a new portable PC that will "change the way you think about laptops." A clock counting down the days and hours until January 9, when the new product is scheduled to appear, popped up on Sony's New Zealand site, as pointed out over the weekend by Engadget.
Putting the teaser in context of the photo of the oddly-shaped Sony device that popped up on the FCC's Web site two weeks ago, it certainly seems likely that this will be a notebook unlike what others are offering.
But the question is, will it be a Netbook? Sony has been conspicuously absent from the Netbook market among its Windows-wielding brethren. (Apple has held out too, but it's not price-matching with other PC makers.)
Netbooks have taken off in the past 12 months, moving from a quirky offering from Asus to the form factor that's giving the PC industry a whiff of hope. All the major manufacturers are on board, and it's paying off now since the price tags are cheaper than standard notebooks. However, how it will hurt them in the long run (dragging down average prices of notebooks, cannibalizing lower-end laptop models) is still to be determined.
The argument for Sony keeping out of the low-end fray is certainly there. Sony--like Apple--fancies itself a maker of luxury devices and is loath to get into price wars with the likes of Dell and HP. (Of course, it didn't want to wrestle with the lower-tier Vizio and Westinghouse in LCD TVs either, but the reality of the HDTV market forced Sony's hand.)
... Read more
The annual consumer electronics show isn't always a hotbed of new laptops, desktops, and accessories. After all, Apple likes to hold its own shows on its own schedule, and most big PC makers target their new products for the back-to-school and holiday seasons.
That being said, there are several big trends in the computer industry that will be prevalent on the show floor.
Netbooks: Almost every major manufacturer of laptops has tried to blow off the Netbook trend as a flash in the pan. Why? These small, low-cost systems have lower margins than the $1,000-plus laptops people have been buying for years. But sales trends can only be ignored for so long, so the last half of 2008 saw virtually every major player in the game--Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, etc.--jump on board with sub-$500 Netbooks. At CES, look for the next generation of systems, as PC makers try to both jack up prices with higher-end models with unique features, or lower prices on the average usable configuration from $499 to $399 or less.
Computer as lifestyle appliance: Sure, companies have tried to merge the idea of a computer and a home or lifestyle appliance for years (and honestly, the iPhone has done it better than anyone else), but we expect to see more attempts to make an otherwise standard PC stand out as either a household appliance or a portable do-it-all media device. Will it work? Only if they learn from the guys who spent millions developing high-end UMPCs and low-end dumb e-mail terminals, neither of which took off with the public.
Airport-friendly laptop cases: Talk about an unexpected hit. Starting in September, laptop bag makers introduced split-open butterfly style cases, designed to let you run a laptop through the airport X-ray machine without taking it out. Not only have we seen a ton of these already, but reports indicate that TSA agents actually know the drill on how to use them. Look for more entries in this category in 2009.
Gaming? Not so much: Sure we'll see the latest revisions of the major graphics cards, and even some notable improvements in the graphics capabilities of laptops, but very few major gaming rigs-- and some major players, like Alienware--will be making only a cameo appearance at the show.
Next-gen CPUs: Look for some new chips to power everything from Netbooks to high-end desktops. Will AMD and Intel swap positions as industry leader again? Or, does it even matter, since the popularity of Netbooks and other low-end computers hints that the public may have finally figured out they've been paying for more performance than they need for years?
Windows 7: Vista, we hardly knew ye. Expect the next phase of the gradual public introduction to the next Microsoft operating system to kick off during CES.
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