CES 2011: Show Floor Coverage (Part 2)
Part 2 of our coverage is ready for your viewing pleasure and we check out the booths of Motorola, Sharp, Toshiba, and Samsung!
Motorola's Booth
We've already seen most of the new offerings from Motorola, but we wanted more playtime with their devices, so popping by their booth at the show floors was obviously a no brainer. The Atrix 4G still left us with a pretty good impression after some hands on time and it's a snappy smartphone that will change the way people use their mobile devices thanks to the Webtop feature. We also had more hands on time with the Cliq 2 but we've yet to score a chance with the Xoom tablet since Motorola feels that the device isn't quite ready for a hands-on demo and would only show us videos of what the tablet is supposed to be capable of.
The Motorola booth is a pretty striking affair that you can see from miles away. Just don't go to the wrong Motorola booth that's only showing cordless phones.
You can really see this from a mile away...
As with our initial impressions with the device, the Atrix 4G is very snappy, and we didn't have any problems while testing the unit. If this is the benchmark of dual-core processor smartphones, then we can't wait for the future.
Here's a look at the desktop dock. Note how simple it is? That's all you really need to turn the smartphone into a desktop computer.
The Cliq 2's keyboard feels very clicky, but then again, it's very similar to what the other Motorola phones have.
Motorola doesn't believe in loading your phones with unused apps, so they leave it blank, but they let you choose your own widgets to load.
As we've mentioned, no hands on with the Xoom as yet, and you can only watch videos that showcase the new Honeycomb OS.
Samsung's Booth
Samsung made plenty of announcements at CES, so it should come as no surprise to see a massive booth and plenty of new products to stare at. New TVs, phones, cameras, ecosystem demos and notebooks were all there to play with. The Galaxy Tab was also present at the booths. A WiFi only version has already been announced, though nothing was said about a Galaxy Tab 2. We also tried to get our hands on the new Infuse, but sadly, the phone wasn't available to play with.
Note the crazy amount of screens - it makes for an impressive sight.
Where exactly is the bezel? Oh there it is. The new flagship Samsung LED TV D8000 has a 0.2-inch (19mm) bezel and features all the new 3-inch Touch Control remote. Also has built-in WiFi and Smart Hub portal for web surfing and social networking capabilities.
Big TVs are your thing? Then the 75-inch LED 3D capable TV from Samsung will blow your eyes away.
The 3D arena is a pretty cool concept, lots of LED TV series 7 joined together to form one giant 3D viewing screen. Also showing SNSD is a bonus. You just can't escape the Korean girl groups.
The plasma televisions got a slight increase in size with the Plasma+1 design, which is a thinner bezel design that adds one more inch to the screen size.
With some TVs now having access to the Samsung App Store, you can now play games on the TV through your device or TV with a friend who can play on his device or TV too.
Here's what the Samsung App Store looks like on the TV. Too bad most of the video streaming is US only.
The new 950 Series monitor is a LED 3D capable model that looks quite different with its one sided design.
Samsung's Booth
The new 9 series notebook is a very thin wonder that's made from duralumin and is twice as durable as aluminum. It's also 13.3-inches and packs an Intel Core i5 processor inside.
The Sliding PC 7 is a tablet normally and has a slide out keyboard.It's just like a giant version of a slider phone but uses an Intel Atom processor instead.
On the mobile side of things, here's the Samsung Infuse 4G. It's pretty sweet but we can't get a better picture as this was the only set on display and stuck behind this glass display.
On the other hand, here's the Google Nexus S and it feels very much like the Galaxy S..
The recently announced Galaxy Player, well, it's just like the iPod Touch version of the Galaxy S, and has no phone function, but otherwise behaves exactly like any other Android device.
The Samsung NX11, which we've already spotted a few times, appears at the Samsung booths. The camera sports a mirrorless design and uses a 14.6-megapixel sensor, iFunction lens, 3.0-inch AMOLED display and HD movie recording.
Last but not least, the Samsung NX100, and shares the same specs as the NX11. Note that the iFunction lens that were introduced with the NX100 are also compatible with the abovementioned NX 11.
Sharp's Booth
We popped by Sharp's booth, which was surprisingly dark to better showcase their TVs perhaps, and checked out what they had to offer. Well, mostly TVs but we did find a gem in a mobile phone that supports glasses free 3D. There's also Sharp Galapagos branded eBook reader/tablets that are currently only available in Japan, but will make their way to the US soon.
We aren't kidding you when we say it's dark. It really is over at Sharp's booth.
Right at the front are these latest Sharp AQUOS Quattron models in much bigger sizes. They are also 3D capable too!
Here's a closer look at the AQUOS Quattron LE835, and comes in 40, 46, 52 and 60-inch screen sizes. It has built-in Wifi and is edge-lit for a thinner body.
Here are a bunch of Blu-ray players from Sharp, BD-HP25U, BD-HP35U and BD-HP75U. These players are capable of delivering a variety of streaming options, including Netflix, VUDU, Pandora, and YouTube straight to your TV set.
The i3Wall, is a room full of monitors that are all synced to show a surround image. It's great to stand near it if you're feeling chilly, as this many monitors do generate a crazy amount of heat that we could feel quite strongly.
Here's a closer up look if you were to stand next to it. Note, this image only shows 4 walls, you're still missing the top wall.
One of the phones that we spotted using a glasses-free 3D screen.
Toshiba's Booth
With a tagline like "Leading Innovation" as their company slogan, we couldn't but quiver with anticipation as to what Toshiba would have up their sleeve. Thankfully, we weren't disappointed, as they were showing off 3DTVs that didn't require the use of glasses through the use of a parallex film (or so we understand from the video demonstration). The panels are also of a higher resolution at 4096 x 2160 pixels, which we're guessing is required for the glasses free effect. This will cost quite a bit though, so don't expect it to be cheap.
Hello Toshiba, let's see what you have in store for us!
The 3D display without glasses basically means you have to stand at a fixed position. Any slight deviation and it goes all out of the window. Not very suitable for a home environment we feel but it's still a cool idea to be honest (not that we haven't seen something similar before though).
A smaller screen using the same parallex barrier technology as the TVs do make more sense. Firstly, your head position won't be moving too much, and you can adjust the set to your position. This notebook is also capable of detecting whether you are in front of the unit and turning on the stereoscopic feature automatically.
We played with the Toshiba AS100 in Singapore, and this is actually an updated model with improvements that we could like. It will have Honeycomb when it's ready, and the rubber grip at the back makes the unit look so much better than the original device.
If there's an Android version, then a Windows 7 version running on Intel Atom shouldn't be far behind...
You can add on a camera for Skye chatting.
Though the best part of the camera device is actually for use as a voice controller for the TV. However, we don't think it likes the Singaporean accent much because it didn't quite respond well to our commands.
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