Some Notable Gadgets at Consumer Electronics Show 2012

The yearly Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held every January in Las Vegas, USA, is one of the biggest tech events of the year. And since it takes place in January, it sets the precedent for tech innovations for the rest of the year. From tech giants like Microsoft to the new players in industry, everyone comes up with new technologies, gadgets, devices-all things tech. Every year at the CES, lot of new innovations is seen, and this year was no different. From unbelievable large GDTVs to slimmer, powerful laptops, and a plethora of tables, the CES was the place to be this year.

Last month we mentioned some rumoured to be announced this year. This month, we present an overview of some of the most noteworthy products and technologies announced at the CES.

Winner: LG 55-inch OLED 3D HDTV

LG became the party rocker this year by announcing an unbelievable product-a 55-inch 3D HDTV. There are two prominent aspects that make this TV special. First, it is unlike any other HDTV available in  the market. The commonly available HDTV flavors are Plasma, LCD and LCD-backlit LCD (or LED TVs). But organic light Emitting Diode (OLED) is a new technology when it comes to HDTVs. Until now, a major selling point for LED HDTVs was their thin profile. Here’s the breaking news; LED TVs are no longer the slimmest TVs. This LG TV is only 4mm in width. That’s way thinner than you pinky finger!

Besides the OLED technology and the large size, this TV also boasts itself as a 3D HDTV. It’s unbelievable to see something so thin being able to produce such an amazing picture quality; and its ability to display 3D content is equally fascinating. The LG OLED 3D HDTV is expected to be available in late 2012.

Considering the competition, Samsung also introduced a 55-inch OLED HDTV, but LG took the lead with something else as well-the 84-inch 4k TV (4K=full HD resolution x2). This TV is so big that it won’t easily enter a normal house. You have to buy it, it somewhere, and build your house around it!

Ultra-books

With the introduction of ultra-thin and powerful MacBook Air, competitors have been trying hard to achieve the standard set by Apple. Guess what, looks like they’ve finally got it. ‘Ultra-books’, which are basically ultra-slim notebooks, unveiled at the CES this year don’t compromise on performance at all.
All ultra-books introduced at the CES were based on Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture, which means batter performance and more battery life. It might not be suitable to call (all of) the Macbook Air rip-offs, but yes, most of them looked heavily inspired. Notable introducers of ultra-books at the CES were Lenovo, Samsung, HP, LG, Acer, and Vizio.

So by looking at these HDTVs and commuters so far, we can describe the CES ’12 in one Phrase- thin is in.

Smart phones

There were not many smart phones at the CES this year. Hence, the competition was obviously taken over by Nokia, with the introduction of the Lumia 900. Most of you might be familiar with Nokia Lumia 800 released last year.The 900 is one step ahead of its predecessor. With a bigger screen and batter display, the Lumia 900 has achieved the reputation of ‘the best Windows Phone available’. More specifically, it has a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, an impressive 8-megepixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics, of course), and a 1.4 GHz processor that is unbelievably impressive for a smart phone. Other smart phones at the CES were a representation of the smart phone future. Intel-power smart phones will be available in market soon. This move came after Motorola and Lenovo partnered with Intel. Rumours suggest that Intel could power Windows Phones and iPhone with the new chips.

Tablets

With the iPad3 release getting closer, competitors are scrambling to set tablet standards unattended even by Apple. Nevertheless, until now, were yet to see anything groundbreaking on that front. That being said, a demonstration of powerful tables was seen at the CES this year. Most of them were aimed at improved performance and design, and were powered by Android or Windows 8. Some notable (read: successful) tables manufacturers spotted at this year’s CES include Blackberry, Asus, Motorola, Toshiba, and Dell; but only two companies aimed for something different. You’ve probably heard of ‘One laptop per Child’. They unveiled the ‘O 3.0 tablet’’, which is a rugged tablet build to survive.

It’s cheap, yet efficient. An impressive feature of this tablet is that it can be charged via alternative energy sources like solar energy. The tablet introduced by Fujitsu at the CES 2012 can flawlessly underwater. You might consider getting this one if you’d like to use your tablet while you go swimming, hehe. Also worth mentioning is the Razer Fiona, the first ever gaming tablet.

Honorable Mentions

• Nikon’s D4 DSLR camera- this is newest flagship DSLR in Nikon’s line-up, a successor to the D3S.
• The Smart Fridge by Samsung. It’s not your regular kitchen refrigerator, because it has a touch screen, Wi-Fi, speakers, downloadable apps, and it can Tweet as well. You can tell it what foods are inside it, and it will inform you what you can cook using them!
• Waterproof gadgets, nothing really new; but the same old gadgets with a protective coating applied which repels water-waterproofing the gadgets for real.

So these were a few highlights from this year’s CES. Obviously, this article only covers a fraction of the full show, so be sure to indulge in some series stalking of websites that had sent people there to witness the showcase, for more CES awesomeness. Looking up on all the stuff unveiled at the CES 2012; it really looks like we’ve stepped into the future.