The
buzz after CES about mobile phones, proves, "What happens in Vegas
doesn't always stay in Vegas." The Consumer Electronics Show 2008
estimates that 130,000 attendees viewed the latest technology along
with over 4,000 journalists. Motorola, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony and
Neonode all showed their wares with Motorola getting a lot of attention
and LG features sneaking past most reviewers except Wireless and Mobile News.
The most lauded launch which won CNET's people choice award was the Motorola ROKR8 with a morphing touchscreen keyboard that changes for phone and music player use. The Z10,
however, had a lot more capabilities than most reports, a demonstrator
at the MOTO booth showed us how film clips could be edited and cross
faded all on the phone which was very impressive.
The most overlooked phone which was the most interesting and practical for a writer/editor to use was the LG Viewty.
When we asked at the LG booth what we should try we were directed towards
the phone. The camera with stabilization was lovely but the real hocus
pocus on this phone is the handwriting recognition. With the top of of
a pen cap the phone recognized letters quickly and effectively.
Nokia's N95 8GB US version,
is slightly thicker than previous version and was popular at the booth.
The price tag of close to $750 makes it a tougher sell.
The Neonode N2
which uses a touchscreen with finger swiping capabilities was launched
for the U.S. market at CES. Although it looks like the iPhone is much
smaller and been called "cute."
Samsung debuted
four phones: the dual slider music phone SGH-i450; the SGH-G800 5
megapixle camera phone with 3X optical zoom; the SGH-i620 a Windows
smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the bottom; and
the SGH-i780 another Windows smartphone.
The luxury phones from Samsung
including the Beyonce phone were previously announced in other parts of
the world and didn't make as big a splash as Mary J Blige's appearance.
However, we know that if Beyonce had been at booth it would have been a
bigger hit.
All the new phones launched by Sony such as the W350 and World W760 were locked up in a case and inaccessible on the show floor. Although the phones looked nice locked up in the case, the Z555 with
gesture technology would have been fun to play with and try out.
Apparently, invited press were allowed to use the phones at special
launch party at Ceasers Palace.
Asus showed its GPS travel phone that has travel log and SOS SMS capabilities. The iRiver touchscreen phone was listed as number 9 of 20 devices that "captured the attention of the world" by CEA.
The gossip in the press room
revolved around everything going wireless and the convergence of
technologies into single multi-function devices such as WiMAX or 3G enabled
devices in cars and new technologies to add to mobile phones. When we returned we discovered the hoopla about the Gizmodo blogger who shut off demos and walls of TVs as a prank and was banned from future CES.