Connect with us

Editorials

What’s With All the Old Gadgets?

Published

on

The Consumer Electronics Show is the highlight of my year. I get to go to Las Vegas and get to see the latest gadgets, before they are released to the general public. Most of the time there will be a few gadgets available for purchase right then, but the rest will trickle out over the early part of the year.

This year, I am still waiting to see several devices, which have taken an eternity to make it to market; the Motorola Droid Bionic and the ASUS Eee Pad Slider. Both of these devices were announced at CES 2011, over 200 days ago.

ASUS has finally announced, for the second time, the Eee Pad Slider, but we still don’t have a release date or pricing for the U.S. The Motorola Droid Bionic is also finally confirmed for September after a 9 month gestation period.

droidbionic oldWhile the gadget makers like ASUS and Motorola have been busy trying to get their devices to market, Apple has launched the iPad 2, the MacBook Pro and a new MacBook Air. Yes, these companies have been working on other devices, but it is astounding that these gadgets will be almost one year old when they arrive on the market.

Countless other gadgets have come and gone since January 2011, but few companies have the combination of bravery and foolishness to launch a product announced at CES this late in the year. While Motorola appears to have gone back to the drawing board to bring us a new Bionic, ASUS seems content with loading Android 3.1 on the Slider and sending it out into the world.

Of these two products, I can see the Droid Bionic succeeding if Motorola and Verizon listen to the advice of our own Adam Mills. The Eee Pad Slider, while nifty looking, will be lucky to capture a small percent of the already small Android tablet market.

By the time these products trickle down to retail and catch the attention of consumers there will be a new crop of devices leaking out and being announced at CES 2012.

If you were interested in the Droid Bionic and the Eee Pad Slider back in January are you still interested today? If you plan on getting the slider, why are you picking it up over the Eee Pad Transformer or another tablet with a keyboard case.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Dale Strauss

    08/02/2011 at 1:58 pm

    “You snooze, you lose!” My kids have been saying it for years, and now we all know why Apple hides its secrets so closely; announcement and release should at least come within the same year!

  2. BoomHauer

    08/02/2011 at 1:59 pm

    Unless the Bionic has better specs than what we think, like a better screen or faster processor…..it makes no sense to wait or get excited about a phone that will be outdated and outspec’d by other phones upon arrival.

  3. Scotty Braun

    08/02/2011 at 3:31 pm

    Ive been waiting on this darn Bionic for so long now, that I’m just gonna keep my options open. I’m thinking the same thing, that it really is just gonna be a Photon with LTE for Verizon.
    I honestly want to check out that HTC Vigor if thats true. Ill have 2 upgrades available this month, and my new every 2 discount as well. So I might wait on a few new phones to launch before I jump ship

    • BrianB13

      08/05/2011 at 7:36 am

      That’s the smart thing to do.  People that just couldn’t wait and just went out and bought whatever is out there right now won’t be very happy by the end of October.  This is a case where patience will pay off.

  4. Anonymous

    08/02/2011 at 4:29 pm

    I just paid $23.86 for an iPhone and my girlfriend loves her Dell laptop that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 42 inch LED TV to my boss for $665 which only cost me $62,81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabPenny.com

    • mrfrodo24

      08/03/2011 at 5:44 pm

      that post is pretty off topic.  But in response to your silly post, let me inform you that Dell laptops are about the worst you can get right now.  Jokes on you.

      • BrianB13

        08/05/2011 at 7:26 am

        Dell laptops suck.  The ones we got in the office a year ago have structural problems.  They crack.  that guy is off topic because he is a SPAMMER!!

        • Mike

          08/25/2011 at 1:51 pm

          Yes dells are the effing worst.  My college accounting program required their DELL POS and that was the first and last time I’ve bought one.  Problems from the get go, fried motherboard (out of the box, i have a desktop so i didn’t use it for anything other than accounting) and when they fixed it it still didn’t work correctly. 

  5. Anonymous

    08/02/2011 at 5:58 pm

    The problem is that a month or two after they release the Droid Bionic they are said to release the “Dinara” which has better specs.  That’s a pretty sneaky game they are playing.  Why get 1.0 GHz dual core when the Samsung Galaxy S II has been out for over 4 months with a 1.2GHz dual core?  It doesn’t make sense to release a phone whose specs are a total of 400 MHz slower than a phone released 4 months ago.  It’s called regression of technology.  When all companies are putting out faster processors (to compete with Samsung and Iphone), Motorola in the infinite wisdom is tossing us old technology (compared to Samsung Galaxy S II) that is…  Hardware specs aside, the incessant delays and lack of information give Moto the image of being inept and incompetent.  I am an original Droid owner, and was a huge fan of the Bionic, but now it seems like Moto is playing us for fools.  Release an inferior phone and then a month or two later release a phone that will be able to compete (hardware wise) with the likes of Samsung Galaxy SII, HTC Vigor and Iphone 5.  Droid Bionic will be old news a month after you buy it.  How’s that for a great product, and deceitful practices.  If Motorola was serious, they would release the Bionic with the specs of “Dinara” not “Targa”.  “Targa” 5 months ago was leading edge.  Now it’s stale!

    • Slade Jeppesen

      08/02/2011 at 6:29 pm

      You have to remember leatherneck is that we know nothing about this “NEW” Bionic. For all we know it will be a 1.2GHz dual core, possible even a 1.5. The OG Bionic that had those specs is long gone. So what place states as facts straight from Motorola what the new specs are? As for me I’m optimistic and hope we get surprised with a 720p screen 1.2 Underclocked 4460 CPU, and a 1GB of RAM. 

      • BrianB13

        08/05/2011 at 7:34 am

        The specs were placed out on the Motorola Dev site and then pulled.  We know exactly what the specs are now and they basically suck.  From the processor speed (1.0 ghz), to the front facing camera (0.3 mp) to the pentile matrix display.  As long as the Samsung Stratosphere is dual core 4g LTE I will consider that along with the HTC Vigor if it is 4g LTE too.  The only way I get a Bionic now is if its the only dual core 4g LTE phone out between now and the end of October or the Bionic works really well in comparison to the other two.  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.