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CES 2008: Sierra’s Final Impressions

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This was my fourth or fifth CES, but my first CES as a press attendee, so I got a totally different view of the show this year than I have in year’s past. As an exhibitor, you spend a lot of time trying to be polite to people and make sure that they correctly understand the message you’re trying to convey. At the end of a 5 hour shift, my feet hurt a lot, but in a totally different way than walking for 5 hours. Rob, Warner and Matt have all given some excellent overviews of their CES experiences, but here’s my take on it.

The Good

  • This is geek heaven. If it plugs in, you can probably find it at CES.
  • Pepcom Digital Experience – Since this was my first year as press, this was my first Digital Experience as well. Fabulous! It was some of the best parts of CES all in one, manageably sized room. I made some significant contacts and new product discoveries there that I followed up on at CES the next day.
  • BlogHaus!! One of my favorite parts of CES was getting to meet all of the people I know and put faces to names. :-)
    • On a related note – meeting Warner and Matt! Although I had met Rob a few times in the past at events, I’d never met Warner or Matt. And I’d even done a couple of podcasts with Warner before I met him!
  • OQO Model 02 – I was very happy to get my hands on an OQO Model 02 for a couple of days. Unfortunately, Warner took it back and I never saw it again. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) This has been somewhat of a dream system for me for a while now, so it was great to get to give it a hands-on trial.
  • Tablet PC Meetup! Wow!! The readers, the users, the Tablet PC manufacturers, the other bloggers – it was overwhelmingly great to get to see 102 Tablet PC enthusiasts in one place. Even Warner couldn’t get us all to sit down and eat the food.
  • Getting to ferret out the unknown systems and unknown devices. I loved stumbling on the Viliv system over in the car section.
  • Interviews with Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba, HP, TabletKiosk, EPOS, InPlay Technologies, DeviceVM…. and many others. It was amazing to get to talk to so many of the primary players in the Tablet PC/UMPC/MID space all in one place.

The Bad

  • My feet still hurt. :-)  I walked for miles and miles, every day.
  • The show is just so big that you can’t see everything you want to see, let alone the folly of trying to see everything.
  • What you want to do next is never in the same building that you are currently in. Taxis, monorail, or more walking…
  • Never enough time to post interesting stuff. I found stuff and tried to get it posted, but I could never say anything meaningful because I was so rushed to see something else. There’s always a fine line between posting quantity and quality.
  • I need to work on my mobile kit. This was my first attempt and I need some upgrades, starting with my camera. I kept trying to take pictures and most of them were pretty yucky.
  • I need a broadband solution. There were far too many times when I didn’t have reliable WiFi connectivity and I just needed to get online. The problem is, what kind and from what provider. I lean towards a USB based solution so that I can have it portable from system to system.

And The Ugly

  • The thought of Rob in a pink blankie. :-)  (At least I had my own room and didn’t have to share with those three.)

I’m already planning next year. Viva CES 2009, apparently Jan 8-11.

 

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