CES 2008: Rob’s Impressions of CES

I’m pretty sure you all are tired of reading about everyone’s impressions of CES. However, we would be remiss by not offering up our own.

Highlights:

• getting hands-on with Microsoft Surface. That was a total Wow experience and a definite highlight for me.
• meeting Otto Berkes, the man behind the UMPC. What we are seeing today with the MID and more can be traced back to Otto.
• Actually seeing and holding some MID’s for the first time
• The Tablet PC / UMPC Meetup. I loved talking one-on-one with readers, and even more than that, I loved seeing readers win Tablet PCs. The guy who won the TX2000 told me he found out about the meetup from our site, came to the meetup, and walked away winning the TX2000 Tablet PC. How cool is that! Major kudo’s to Lenovo, HP, Fujitsu, and Motion Computing on sponsoring the meetup with those giveaways.
• spending time with HP’s Stacy Wolff
• meeting Microsoft’s Jeff Sandquist, the man behind Channel 9 and much more.
• spending time with Motion Computing’s Scott Eckert, John Dohtery, and Michael Johnson. Watch for our upcoming 3-part chat series on the LS800, WriteTouch, and some insightful history about Motion.
• Seeing so many bloggers I read everyday at the Bloghaus.
• Having dinner with TechSmith’s Betsy Weber.
• Pepcom / Digital Experience. I saw more in less time in a less formal setting than I got during 3 days of CES. For mobile pc coverage, Pepcom / Digital Experience was the event for us.
• The Intel MID area was PACKED. I mean 3 – 5 people deep. There was a lot of interest in MIDs.
• Getting hands-on with the Toshiba M700. This will definitely be my next desktop replacement Tablet PC.
• Getting my Amazon Kindle back from Sierra. She has some serious mobile gadget problems. Don’t lend her a gadget unless you are prepared to say good-bye to it. Warner had the same trouble with her on the OQO Model 02.
• Meeting Matt and company from MobileDemand, and roughing up the xTablet T8700.
• My greatest highlight can be seen in the InkShow that we’ll post up on Monday.

Disappointments:

• Cellular coverage
• Bill Gates Keynote. I loved the retirement day video, but much of presentation was about what they’ve done and released the past year. I’m glad I watched it from the Bloghaus and not the Venetian.
• The Luxor and the internet connectivity charges. $12.95 per day per laptop. There is something seriously wrong with that.
• Dell not bringing the XT. They said it was because the XT is an enterprise product and CES is a consumer event. Baloney. The XT was the most anticipated launch of 2007. CES is where Tablet OEMs announce and showcase their tablets. I did get to spend some hands-on with the XT, but it was at another vendor’s booth – Ergo
• The lack of any Tablet PC news. I suspect this means we are in for a lot of announcements this coming year.
• CES Unveiled was a let-down. We did see some interesting tablet stuff there, but I expected more " just announced / breakthrough stuff"
• CES is just too darned big.  Seriously, they need to break it up.
• Intel needs to revamp their booth. All the blue lighting is horrible for pictures and video.
• The booths inside CES felt like they were built for an open-invitation general public expo: mock game shows and more. The best booth stuff was found on the outskirts from the little companies who probably spent their entire 2008 advertising for just floor space.
• Much of CES felt like a review of last year’s technology. I know there was stuff announced that we don’t follow, but for the most part, I didn’t walk away with that nagging feeling of "I gotta go buy that – NOW!" – except for maybe that Logitech Mini DiNovo keyboard – that was really sweet.