(800) 681-5470
In this year’s edition of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one of the largest electronics fair in the world, the gadgets of the future have been launched.
Consumer Electronics Show is an annual IT fair taking place in Las Vegas since 1998, first edition taking place 45 years ago in New York City. This is, along with the IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) and CeBIT (Centrum für Büroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation), one of the most important technology fairs in the world. Almost all electronics manufacturers come every year to the Las Vegas Convention Center in order to present their latest products, and the gadgets launched here are establishing the year’s trends. In the past, the video recorder (1970), the Compact Disc (1981), the DVD (1996), the HD TV (1998) and the Blu-ray disc (2004) have been launched . Last year, over 140,000 people visited the fair and found the products of over 2,700 companies present. In 2011 the products in the spotlight were the tablets and 3D TVs, this year ultrabooks and OLED TVs were the ones that attracted visitors’ attention.
Slim, Slim, Slim
Be it tablets, laptops or mobile phones, manufacturers have counted more than ever on the smaller and smaller dimensions of their products. In notebooks, South Koreans from Samsung have won the title of producing the thinnest ultrabook in the world in front of Acer. The Acer S5 has a 13.3-inch display and a thickness of only 15 mm, while the Samsung 5 Series Ultra comes with a diagonal of 13 inches and a thickness of 14 mm, but Acer S5 has a battery with autonomy of eight hours, while the Samsung model must be charged after 6.4 hours.
Chinese at Huawei boast the thinnest dual-core smartphone in the world. The Huawei Ascend P1 S is only 6.9 mm thick and comes equipped with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with 960×540-pixel resolution, made of Corning Gorilla glass.
In tablets, Toshiba introduced the world’s slimmest tablet. The Excite X10 has a 10.1-inch screen and a thickness of only 7.7 mm. In comparison, the iPad 2 is 8.8 mm thick. The tablet has a 1.2 GHz processor, 1GB RAM and two cameras. The 16 GB version will cost $530, while the 32 GB will cost $600. Other tablets that have been launched at CES and worth mentioning are Lenovo IdeaPad S2, Lenovo IdeaTab K2, Acer Iconia Tab A200, Acer Iconia Tab A700, Fujitsu Tablet Arrows Tab and One Laptop Per Child XO 3.0.
Gadgets That Have Impressed
“2012 will be the ultrabooks’ year”, Intel officials have been claiming since last year, and at this year’s CES dozens of models have been presented, but only few have managed to impress. One of these is the Yoga ultrabook powered by Lenovo. It is 17 mm thick and weighs 1.4 kg with a 13.1-inch touchscreen powered by an Intel i7 processor and 8GB RAM. What makes this ultrabook special is the ability to transform into a tablet. Yoga has a special clamping mechanism that allows the screen to turn around and be used as a tablet. The new notebook will be available in the second half of the year, at a price of $1,200.
Another ultrabook, not trying to copy Apple’s MacBook Air, is the HP Envy Spectre, which has the lid and touchpad covered with Gorilla Glass. This ultrabook has a 14-inch screen, is 20 mm thick and weighs 1.8 kg. The laptop comes with Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, 4 or 6 GB RAM, solid state hard drives from 128 GB and USB 3.0. The HP Envy Spectre will be available in late March at a price of $1,644.99.
Dell has not missed the opportunity to launch an ultrabook at CES. The XPS 13 is 18 mm and weighs 1.36 kg. The XPS 13 will be equipped with Intel Core i3, i5, i7 processors, and with SSDs of up to 256 GB. The Dell XPS 13 will hit the U.S. market in February at a suggested retail price of $ 999.
A big fuss also was at the Samsung, Sony, LG and Sharp booths, who brought to CES 2012 incredible TVs. Samsung and LG have presented 55-inch OLED TVs. In these OLED TVs colors and contrast are superior to LCD or plasma TVs and the power consumption is lower, the only drawback is the price. The LG model, which is only 4 mm thick, will be launched in the next two months at a price of $5,000. Those from Samsung have not set a date, confirming though that it will be available this year.
Samsung also presented LED and plasma TVs with Samsung Smart Interaction technology – an intuitive platform that uses the control functions Motion Control, Voice Control and Face Recognition, meaning that can be controlled from the hand and voice. In return, Panasonic has come up with the most 3D TVs. Of the 17 models, 16 are 3D, while five of the 14 LED/LCD/HDTV TVs launched at CES 2012 have 3D functions. Meanwhile, Panasonic has launched two new 47 and 55-inches LED screens. An interesting line of TVs has also been introduced by Sharp. Aquos Freestyle are TVs of 20, 30 and 40 inches, which can be taken anywhere.
In terms of smartphones, Sony Xperia S, Nokia World 900, HTC Titan II or LG Viper, have been the most important releases. Sony, who took over mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson in October for 1.05 billion Euros, owned in joint venture with the Swedish group Ericsson, has presented the first smartphone Xperia: Xperia Ion, Xperia S, Xperia Acro, HD Xperia NX. Xperia S is an Android smartphone with a high resolution display and features a 12 MP camera. However, Xperia S comes with a powerful dual-core 1.5 GHz and will be available globally in the first quarter of 2012. Launched on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), Xperia S will receive the update for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in the second quarter of 2012.
HTC Titan II is the first Windows Phone of company that is compatible with LTE network and comes with a 16-megapixel camera. The smartphone, which will be available in the coming months for the AT & T customers, comes with the largest screen of all the phones running Windows and a 16-megapixel digital camera.
LG Viper is an LTE phone designed specifically for the U.S. market, and Nokia Lumia N900 is a smartphone running the Windows Phone OS and will be available also for the first time in the U.S. market.
Microsoft Retired. Apple Inspects Its Rivals
CES 2012 was the last edition attended by Microsoft. However, most of the audience was expecting a spectacular announcement, but it didn’t come. CEO Steve Ballmer, however, announced that Windows 8 in beta version will be available in late February and that any PC running Windows 7 will be able to upgrade to Windows 8. Microsoft will organize special events in order to launch its products, as Apple does.
Although Apple does not participates with its own booth at CES, the company sends its employees to the fair every year. This year, 250 employees were present at CES 2012, including Greg Joswiak, Apple Vice President. Joswiak and other Apple employees have taken notes, so iPad3 and iPhone 5 will definitely be more efficient!
ABOUT MY TECH TEAM:
My Tech Team is a leading online tech support company based in the U.S, providing nationwide on demand enterprise level computer support and protection 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
Would you be so kind to share this post? Use the buttons below.
You Might Also Like...
- Samsung 5 Series Ultra Presented at CES 2012
- Weekly Tech Wrap-Up: CES 2012 News, Siri Competitor, and More
- CES 2012: Lenovo Launches New Range of IdeaPad Laptops
- CES 2011: The Techy, The Geeky and The Weird
- Weekly Tech Wrap Up: Latest Updates from Google, Motorola, Samsung and Twitter
