Day after CES closes, nobody here

Today is travel day as we leave the pretend world of Las Vegas and head back to the real world.  We’ll be offline and in the air for much of the day but meanwhile I’ve thrown together a bit of a wrapup of the big CES 2009.

Netbooks were definitely the big item as CES this year but we expected that.  Almost everybody makes one and the rest plan to make their own.  The little notebooks were everywhere and due to the low prices of them they are not going away any time soon.  The Sony Vaio P appearance was big news at CES and while not a netbook it is a “tweener” device that piqued a lot of interest at the show.

On the smartphone front things were quiet with the obvious exception of the Palm Pre.  The introduction of the new smartphone from Palm was the biggest buzz-maker at the show and put the only life into the smartphone arena that we saw.  Palm needed a transfusion of excitement in their world and the Pre has definitely provided it.

The rest of the smartphone world at CES was dead silent.  There were no new Windows Mobile phone announcements, handset maker displays were just more of the same.  Nokia showed some new stuff but it was largely variants of existing stuff and no one was walking around the show floor talking about them.  It’s as if Palm sucked the wind out of the smartphone world for everyone else.

The biggest surprise for me at the CES was the total lack of anything Android.  There were no new handsets presented, none announced, just dead silence.  The handset makers working on Android phones may be waiting for the Mobile World Congress in February to make their move but it was surprising to not see a single Android phone appear at CES.  It unsettles me a bit as I have predicted on the latest MobileTechRoundup show that I expect to see at least 12 Android phones appear this year.  Android could give Palm a run for its money with new handsets so they’d better get busy.

Today is a day to wind down from the CES 2009 grind and for me that means installing the newly released Windows 7 beta.  I got an install DVD from someone at the Tablet meetup yesterday so today I’m installing it under Parallels on the MacBook.  The install actually went pretty smoothly as Parallels had an update last week to include support for the Windows 7 beta.  The only thing I can’t get working so far is sharing the 3G connection on the MacBook with the virtual machine with Windows 7 installed.  I’m playing with it now.  :)

UPDATE: after installing Parallels Tools in Windows 7 my connectivity issues disappeared.  This update was performed in Google Chrome under Windows 7 under Parallels Desktop.

Long-time reader Hector Gomez drove hours to meet up at the tablet gathering in Vegas. Hector had some cool gear with him, the MSI Wind running Windows 7 and the sweet little Kojhinsha SC3.

Thanks for coming out Hector!

We finally found the right time to get over to the Sony VAIO kiosk, so here’s a short, 11-minute preliminary hands on with the P. Very first, limited impressions: this is a well designed device. The P certainly doesn’t feel like 1.4-pounds when you hold it; it feels far lighter. I guess we’re all used to carrying 2.5- to 5-pound devices. It’s definitely pocketable, but not in any pants I own. The P should fit nicely within an inside jacket pocket, though.

Most amazing to me is how thin the lid and display are, which we show in the vid. There’s really no flex either. The keyboard is reminiscent of the chiclet-style keys on my MacBook. Definitely usable, but tracking nub may take some getting used to. I wasn’t thrilled that the camera is off to the side; I had hoped that Sony somehow designed it with a small tilt so you could sit centrally. Nope. We didn’t check the DPI settings, but text was quite readable. It’s sure to be a stretch for some folks, but for some, it beats having to scroll every few seconds.

Clearly, this is a nice device. Nice enough for $899 or more? That’s a tough call and one we can’t make with out spending more quality time. Before I forget: as I was working the camera (and getting jostled around), I thought the Sony P had HDMI out. Sleep deprivation has set in as I was obviously wrong. That’s the multi-purpose port for an external display and Ethernet. Best part of the vid? The guy who was trying to hone in on the device so he could take video too. Listen and you’ll hear what I mean… take a number, dude! We’ll get a link to the higher quality video shortly.

Update: the high-def version of this video can be seen here.

One of the events held during the CES week each year that is our favorite is the Tablet PC meetup.  This year it’s being held in the CntrStg suite and you can attend with us as it’s being streamed live.  It starts at 3 PM Pacific Time which is about a half hour from now so join us for the fun.

We were exhausted from walking on day 2, so our daily wrap video didn’t happen until this morning. There were more MIDs, UMPCs and netbooks sighted yesterday. We also spent a good amount of time talking with AMD, who powers the HP dv2: it’s not that much more costly than a well-specified netbook, but doesn’t compromise much in terms of power and performance.

Today we’re hoping to get our hands dirty with more of them and we’ll try to video the experience if things work out. You’d think the show ended yesterday based on the empty press and blogger lounges. Sure, all the big news has come out by now, but there’s still devices to be tinkered with! Only until 5:15pm local time though: I’ve got a very rare playoff game to watch.

Heavy traffic put Windows 7 beta download on hold yesterday, but we’re hearing reports that things are humming along nicely now in Redmond. Here’s the link in case you missed it: you can find both the 32- and 64-bit versions. Early reports of installs and impressions exceed what we saw in the earlier build. Folks appear happy about the lighter overall footprint and cleaned-up UI. I’m on EV-DO and have to wait until I get home before I download, so someone save me a spot in the download line. Thanks!

The CES 2009 is still going although it’s obvious today that a lot of attendees have had enough and are not attending today.  Kevin and I will be seeing a few things today that we’ve got on our short list of things we must see first-hand.  I thought it would be a good idea to share a brief list of what gadgets have impressed me most so far here at CES.

Palm Pre- Kevin and I were both very impressed how smooth Palm has made working with the Pre.  It feels nice in the hand and while it’s too early to tell if the Pre can save Palm it’s definitely a gadget that has impressed me here at the show.

Novatel MiFi- this credit card-sized 3G router made an impression on us when it was first introduced and seeing it in person at the show has not changed that.  There is something totally cool and useful about a tiny gadget that once you turn it on you have an instantly connected hotspot no matter where you are.  In a coverage area anyway.

Sony Vaio P- it is no surprise to find this on my short list.  I haven’t had any hands-on time yet but Sony has done a good job with the design of the P.  I like the fact that the keyboard is touch-typable and the build quality looks pretty decent.  We’ll have to see if the screen resolution is to high to comfortably work with. That may drop it off my list.

HP dv2 notebook- seeing how thin and light this 12-inch notebook really is impressed the heck out of me even though it’s not a netbook.  It’s not much bigger than a netbook and it’s light enough to carry around with ease.  The $699 starting price is very nice considering it has a powerful AMD processor and discrete graphics, unlike netbooks.

Pogoplug- this little box is so useful that it’s amazing no one thought of this before.  You plug any USB hard drive into the Pogoplug and it is instantly accessible from the web.  It has full security and multiple drives daisy-chained are also accessible.  Very cool.

Ed Colligan

If you haven’t had enough of the Palm Pre just yet or want to see what we saw at the invite-only Press Event, today’s your lucky day. Palm is hosting a video recording of the event and the beauty of it is that you don’t have to live-blog it. Just kick back, relax and soak in all the new-ness that CES attendees enjoyed. Hopefully, this gives you a better idea of what we saw and helps you form your own early opinions on the Pre. We’re getting so many questions about the webOS and this might shed some light on the unique approach offered by Palm.