Apple iTV

Another year, another CES. The huge consumer electronics extravaganza in Las Vegas that officially opens on January 10th looks to be a major showcase for tablets, TVs and connectivity this year. The 55-inch LG OLED TV is already getting a lot of buzz even though it's rumored $8,000 price tag will keep it in the fantasy realm for most consumers. We predict this will be the most photographed and talked about product at the show.

Android Tablets Will Make Another Run At the iPad

This time last year Google was just about ready to ship its tablet-friendly version of Android called Honeycomb but even that didn't seem to help Android make a dent in Apple's iPad business. This year we have another version of Android called Ice Cream Sandwich which may or may not help the mainstream tablet vendors like Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and others attract buyers to their tablets. At the moment it looks like the two dominant tablet makers; Apple and Amazon won't even be exhibiting at CES. We also think we'll see tablets featured at a lot of booths as accessories to TVs and controllers for smart home technology. The word is we'll see close to 100 new tablets on display at this year's CES including some quad-core, Tegra 3, Kal-El-powered versions like Acer's Iconia Tab A700. Samsung's 5.3-inch Note, which represents a new size for tablets should be getting a lot of attention along with some tablets that might be running Microsoft's Windows 8.Read more

This year's CES should bring out the latest HDTV sets from all the big names including Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and more. We expect to see more connected TVs with more iPads and other tablets controlling them. A challenge they will all be facing is how to make their TVs stand out from the pack. With little differentiation between one, high refresh rate, LED backlit big screen HDTV set, and another, TV manufacturers are going to have to differentiate in order to make their TVs more appealing than others. One differentiation we may see is added TV "smarts" either built into the TV itself or provided in a companion device like a tablet. TVs with more smarts will help but with rumors of an Apple TV coming in 2012, we wonder if any of the major TV brands will be able to compete with Apple in the battle for the living room.

TV Brands Used to Be Enough of a Differentiator
Unfortunately, throwing pixels on a screen is not enough to sustain a TV manufacturer's market share. HDTVs like laptop computers are becoming something of a commodity; there is little to differentiate one brand from another. Even Sony who has been able to command a price premium in the past now has TVs that are priced similarly to Vizio TVs. Of course there will always be new technology advances like Ultra High Definition (UHDTV), quantum dots, and big screen AMOLED TVs but these won't come for some time and once one vendor gets one of these features, they all will.Read more