Despite only attracting “only” 110,000 attendees, there was still a lot to see and a lot of fun had at 2009’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. First impressions were downbeat, but we found things to look positive about and ended up having a great time with some of the tech toys we’ll be seeing on the streets this year.
Top of the stack was the Pre, a good-looking smartphone that turned Palm’s press from tragedy to triumph in a matter of hours. There are seven features that make it better than the iPhone. Don’t miss Joel and John’s hands-on coverage.
We also took a look at Sony’s amazing Vaio P notebook. Though the company hates it when people call it a netbook, it’s hard not to notice the resemblance: an Intel Atom-powered lightweight 1.4lb laptop with a 9″ display, full keyboard and up to 6 hours battery life. Here’s the announcement and the hands-on review. We fawned over it, we did.
LG came up with the first not-awful cellphone wristwatch; Casio announced a point-and-shoot digicam with the same features as the fancy EX-F1; Sharp announced televisions, and Netgear had a TV streaming box almost as small as a deck of cards.
There were hands-on playtime with the OQO model 02+ and other new pocket PCs and MYVU’s latest video glasses. John had a strange encounter with Disney zombies and pirate play at the Toshiba press event.
We also covered new gear from Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, Monster Cable, HP (more), Netgear and Logitech.
Not enough? There was also another show called MacWorld, should you be interested in $3,000 laptops.