CES 2009 was home to more than 20,000 new products. As usual the show was big and it was a challenge to look at everything. We won’t pretend like we’ve seen it all, but we’ve seen a lot, and here are our personal favorites:
Best of show: Palm Pre
Palm had the most anticipated product announcement of the show, and did not disappoint. The Palm Pre is shaping up to be the most exciting phone of the first half of the year, although rumors have it that HTC is trying to catch up. Palm also had the best press event, closely followed by Samsung and Sony. Unlike iPhone-killer “duds” like the BlackBerry Storm and others, this is the first phone that can actually Challenge the iPhone on its turf. Challenges remain, such as getting developers, apps, app store but the foundation seems solid.
Our Palm Pre live coverage @ CESOfficial event video from Palm (Flash, download), Product page
Samsung P4600 Blu-Ray Player
The P4600 Blu-Ray Player represents the pinnacle of Blu-Ray/DVD player design, and we’re praising Samsung for its design push. The player is smart too as it will pull “instant watch” movies from Netflix and music from Pandora. We hope that more services will follow. We’ve always said that good design sells and the P4600 will most likely prove it. Note that the P4600 is part of a design family that also includes speakers and HDTV. Our first P4600 post from CES.
Sony Vaio P
Whether the Sony Vaio P is a Netbook or not is irrelevant. Yes, it runs on an Atom processor, which should be enough for productivity tasks that users will perform on it. It also comes packed with features, including GPS, 3G, an amazing display paired with an extraordinary design.
Sony G3 Camera
Embedding a web browser into a digital camera lets users upload photos to *any* web-based photo service. Heck, we might even be able to blog directly from the camera. Of course, there are pre-sets for the most popular photo services, but web-service is left behind with the Sony G3. Interesting idea, and time will tell if it’ll catch on. More details in our previous coverage of the Sony G3. Product page
Yahoo Connected TV Gets Support
We often say that hardware makers can’t build software to save their lives and the past few years have proven how true this was on the Internet-connected TV front. But in 2009, it seems that major manufacturers are lining up with Yahoo and its Connected TV effort. This is promising and will likely lead to a better user TV interface. Heck, most TVs don’t even have a decent “connected” TV Guide, that would be on the top of my wish list. Product homepage
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