Consumer Electronics Show 2010 – Gadget Envy
If you are a gadget geek like me, you will be salivating at all of the neat-o things that are being reported out of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.
The talk this year, is all about e-readers and tablets.
First the tablets:
Many of you have probably heard the rumors of an Apple Tablet. BusinessWeek confirmed these rumors in 2009. We don’t know exactly what it will look like since Apple does a very good job of keeping mum on their new projects. In fact, it’s typically rare that we even know this much about one of their upcoming products. I found this image of a hypothetical look at what we might expect to see this year.
Looks pretty nifty to me! Other tablets that are already coming to market that we do know about:
- Microsoft and HP are coming out with a “Slate PC.” It will run Windows 7 and from reviews at the show, it’s a bit clunky looking.
- Sony has the Dash Tablet. They are calling it the “personal Internet viewer.” To me, it looks like a major step backwards and a machine I would not wish on my worst enemy. If you need a new clock at $199, this might be it.
- Kodak and Nvidia have created their own take on the tablet, and so has
- Motorola with the Backflip. While this is a cellphone/smartphone for all intents and purposes, it has a clamshell design that opens completely flat – with a keyboard below the viewing screen.
- Lenovo U1 Hybrid Tablet – runs Android and clips onto a keyboard to become like a notebook.
Now for the e-readers:
Big changes to the e-reader front – from our bland black and white text to color and interactive graphics and “magazine-style layouts.”
- Plastic Logic Que – “The Que, introduced Thursday, is a slender, lightweight device geared toward business professionals. The size and thickness of a pad of paper, the Que features a shatterproof plastic touchscreen that makes it lighter (it weighs just over a pound) than glass e-readers.”
- Skiff (this is the one I’m really excited about) – “It’s believed to be the first e-reader whose e-paper display is based on a thin, flexible sheet of stainless steel foil covered in thin plastic, which means it’s not supposed to break if you drop it.”
- EnTourage eDGe – First- I’m not fond of companies that make their name so wacky. However, it seems like it will be interesting to watch – it has an ereader on the left and a notebook on the right. The company calls it the first ‘dualbook.’
Other fun gadgets coming our way:
- The Sony Bloggie Camcorder – set to take on the Flip.
- Sanyo’s pistol-grip Xacti camcorders that look like, you guessed it, a pistol.
