CES 101

From a 21-year old college student’s perspective, The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a lot more than just expensing room service and casino losses. It is about the upcoming year’s versions of the newest electronic gadgets that we enjoy spending our measly work-study paychecks on. We don’t care about $40,000 speakers and $80,000 amplifiers that are only marginally better than our Sony home theater-in-a-box that was bought on sale for $299. We could care less whether or not a new RF modulator is released this year or that we can now distribute satellite dish feed to ten rooms instead of nine. No, we want the stuff that makes sense for our generation (and our budget!) We want the $100 MP3 players and digital cameras. We want the inexpensive portable DVD players. Hence, the following is a synopsis of 2001’s products that would most impress those without premature baldness or that bit of gray hair just making its way to the mustache.
When I first stepped out onto the show floor, the first thing I noticed was not the size of the new Fujitsu plasma TV or KEF speakers, but the lovely women (“booth babes”) who were seated at many booth fronts, eager to offer a dazzling smile or piece of literature. Were they a long-standing member of upper management? Heck no! They were usually members of a local Vegas agency that specializes in such high quality “merchandise”. However, this is Best Stuff; not Maxim, so I’ll save my top ten list for another time. (But first, let me tell you about this blond at Yamaha…)

Seriously, though, there were a ton of cool products available for perusal. MP3 players were quite prevalent and the ones that really caught my eye were from Treo (a jukebox which sported a 6+ gig drive and is half the size of Creative’s Nomad Jukebox and cheaper to boot!), ATL Multimedia (ditto), Evolution (headphones with a built in player and FM tuner), and iRock (which can be used for karaoke in addition to MP3 and radio listening). Dataplay, a new company in my book, debuted their new digital media who bragged that it would be priced at about $5 per 500MB disk, which is extraordinarily cheap. They appear to be very small versions of the Minidisc as opposed to the flash memory that are currently used in digital cameras and MP3 players. These discs will be used for holding everything from a music video to the latest electronic book, which means that many different types of products will be able to use the disks. Creative Labs showed off a more compact version of their Nomad Jukebox as well as a docking station for the original, which provided a separate power source and an all-in-one Cambridge Soundworks speaker system for the Jukebox, which utilized separate left and right channels. It sounded OK, but the retail price is $150, which can afford you a much nicer set of Cambridge multimedia speakers for the same amount of money.

Satellite radio was another topic that was heavily abuzz at the show. XM and Sirius had the largest of such booths and were advertising some pretty slick features. Just think…over 100 channels of almost any genre of music you can think of, all in CD-quality sound with NO COMMERCIALS!!!! Neat, huh? Hopefully, ABC will follow suit so I can watch my General Hospital without so-called “psychic” Dionne Warwick guaranteeing me that she can predict what I’m eating for dinner.

Car stereo also had a large CES presence. Since elaborate car stereos are another pricey commodity, I didn’t look so much at the companies’ specific gear as I did check out the cars that were brought along with. The absolute coolest of these was the bright red 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena in cable king Monster Cable’s booth. Unfortunately, onlookers were not allowed to even stick their head through the open windows, let alone sit inside. Sirius (the satellite radio guys) took an easy second place with their jet black Dodge Viper AND royal blue BMW X5 SUV. Polk Audio showed off their MOMO speaker line in a silver Audi TT. Madrigal, had the new Lexus SC430 convertible on display. The reason for this was that one of the car’s standard features is a sound system comprised of nine Mark Levinson speakers, a Madrigal line. This was easily one of the best “premium” stereos these ears have auditioned. Too bad I heard the car is going for 65 grand! Mercedes-Benz, the automotive sponsor of the show, had a number of their cars on display including their top-of-the-line V12-equipped CL600 coupe that goes for a mere $121,000. Last but not least was Sony’s setup. The granddaddy of electronics had not one, not two, but three slime-green colored Ford Focuses (Foci?), decked out with their Xplod line. Each front door sported two tweeters and four 5 ¼ drivers. The trunk had three or four 12” subs. Can you say “deafening”?

Speaking of Sony’s exhibit, they were showing some other new toys that should excite the masses. Their Wega line will be increasing from 36 to 40 inches this year and will be the largest CRT television on the market. Their DVD players will be dropping to a $199 price point but will still feature Dolby Digital and DTS outputs as well as a component video out. MP3 was also present with a new portable MP3-reading CD player with their anti-skip G-Protection. Also, a boombox will be released that plays MP3 CD’s as well as a car head unit that does the same. The latter will be a pricey $399.

Panasonic also had a huge presence at the show and probably had the largest booth, outside of Sony. They had an all-in-one DVD/VCR and then one that came built into a 20” TV. A $2300 massage chair, which caused me to yelp in pain, was also present. My opinion of it was rather negative; Panasonic bigwigs, MASSAGES ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL GOOD, NOT CAUSE HERNIAS.

Panasonic’s most buzz-worthy product was the SD (Secure Digital) Memory Card whose claim to fame is that its’ capacity will increase to one gigabyte in a few years and remain the size of a postage stamp. Right now, I’d prefer spending the money on the aforementioned Dataplay disks *(that is if they have any hardware to play on). Panasonic also showed off some new MP3 players, using the SD memory, called “E-wear”. One of these products was very small and included a velcro strap to attach the player around the leg, arm, or neck. There were also more headphones with a built-in player. The benefit of this, over the Evolution product, is that the headphones can fold for easy storage and the product comes with 64 MB of memory (versus 32 MB for the Evolution). However, the Evolution has an FM Tuner and is much cooler looking, since it is an around-the-neck design instead of over-the-head. Finally, Panasonic displayed a new iMac-esque computer that has a 15” LCD screen, DVD drive, two Firewire ports and four USB ports. Its dimensions are much nicer than that of an iMac since it is five inches narrower, two inches shallower and 15 pounds lighter. It also comes with a 3.5” floppy drive.

Since Bill Gates was honored with the first keynote speech of the show where he (and The Rock) introduced their new X-box gaming system, Microsoft felt they needed not one but two entirely separate booths demonstrating some of their new stuff. One booth was devoted to UltimateTV, which is a combination of Tivo and DirecTV. Following their demonstration of the new service, they served soda and BEER (Miller Lite!), which is the definitive in coolness for a CES booth. Their PR people obviously know where it’s at. UltimateTV provides the user with TV program interaction, via the web, and the ability to record two shows at one time. The latter can handle 35 hours of digital-quality picture. You also have the ability to utilize a picture-in-picture feature in a satellite dish system, the first of its kind. I was told that the box would go for $399, excluding the dish, keyboard, and mouse. The service itself will be a very reasonable $9.95 per month in addition to whatever type of DirecTV package you wish to purchase. The other booth that Microsoft used to present product was more for the computer user. They set up a number of different “rooms” in the house and showed which of their new products could be used in each one. The teenager had the Sidewinder Game Voice to talk over the Internet with and the Microsoft Force Feedback 2 joystick to play all the new games (all, of course, by Microsoft), while the garage had a car equipped with an AutoPC to provide the driver with maps and directions to their destination, among a myriad of other features that this Windows CE-based product can perform.

To conclude, the Consumer Electronics Show is a huge affair both for the top executives of the large electronics companies and everyday John Doe’s, like myself. The VIPs enjoy showing off their newest incarnation that will (hopefully) double next year’s revenue while I like to see the future’s gadgets that are constantly becoming smaller, faster, and better not to mention help to make my life a bit more fun.

By: Russ Ain