CES 2008: Previews and Reviews

It’s no secret that Asus is taking the world by storm with its Eee PC, but the company had a lot of other new products to show us at CES, and not just notebooks. Asus plans to release its first smart phone in the U.S. this year, and it will also enter the very crowded GPS arena. Here are the highlights from our quick visit.

WowWee had a whole new family of robots here in Vegas.

The FlyTech Bladestar is the newest addition to the robot company’s indoor flying robot line and it sure did make the security guards in the Sands pretty angry. Designed to be crash resistant, the Bladestar glides through the air with two wings that spin with helicopter-like movement. Built-in infrared sensors allow the Bladestar flyer to detect and avoid obstacles. I got to fly the guy around a bit, but then an angry Sands guard scolded me. More hot robots after the jump…

Some day soon we’ll be able to stop complaining about how freakin’ slow smart phones can be, especially when you’re multitasking. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform incorporates a blazing 1-GHz processor that should be able to handle any task you want your handheld to do–including watching Flash videos–while providing 5 to 6 hours of battery life.

The concept device you see here, co-developed with Inventec, runs Windows Mobile and also has MediaFLO technology built-in for watching TV anywhere. But Snapdragon could just as easily find a home inside Linux-powered devices.

Trimble Outdoors puts GPS on your BlackBerry 8830 or Pearl 2. The GPS software maker showed off its off-road navigator, fitness software, and geocache software, all of which are available–independent of the carriers–for smart phones.

We got a quick demo of the geocashing software, and for those who are into that, this definitely looks like a good way to go. Because it’s on your BlackBerry, you have access to all sorts of information, including others’ posts with clues about how they found a given cache, and it allows you to be more spontaneous in your geocaching because you don’t need to start at home online and then venture out. You can just be out with some time to kill, and see what’s nearby. The service will be $5.99 per month or $39.99 per year.

We had a chance to swing by the XOHM booth and get a taste of what Mobile WiMax technology will offer once it starts rolling out to select cities beginning this April. The promise: a zippy 2 to 4 Mbps per second on the downlink and 1 to 2 Mbps per second on the uplink. XOHM operates somewhat independently of Sprint, but many believe that this high-speed data network is the carrier’s best shot at leapfrogging the competition. And it has some pretty big players betting on the success of Mobile WiMax, from Motorola and Samsung to Nokia and Intel. We had a little hands-on time with some enabled devices around the booth and generally liked what we saw. The highlight: XOHM-ready Asus Eee PC.

You don’t have to throw out your router to get blazing fast 802.11n speeds. Netgear’s 5 GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point/Bridge ($129) can be added to any existing network, whether you want to stream high-def video or enjoy online gaming sans the annoying lag.

When you pair two of the units together, you have the HD/Gaming 5 GHz Wireless-N Networking Kit ($229), enabling users to get their game on while simultaneously streaming high-def videos. Because the two pieces of this solution automatically discover each other, you get easy plug-and-play installation and a rock-solid connection between media devices in the living room (like the Xbox, Slingbox, Apple TV, and Netgear’s own Digital Entertainer HD) and your PC or network storage device.

Small and discrete Bluetooth headsets usually suffer from poor audio quality, but the Invisio Q7 ($149) is different. This tiny device, which will be available in February, sports a bone conduction microphone that captures vibrations in the wearer’s jawbone and converts them to sound without picking up ambient noise.

Just as important, the Q7 is comfortable enough to wear all day, thanks to its patented Soft Spring, which adapts to the contours of your ear. Add in up to 6 hours of talk time and an easy-to-use, three-button interface, and you have an ideal accessory for road warriors.

There’s security and then there’s near-impenetrable security. The sleek and sexy Maxtor BlackArmor takes the prize as the Fort Knox of the storage world, as the first external hard drive to back up and secure your data using Seagate’s DriveTrust hardware encryption.

If you’re wondering about the thoroughness of the government-grade AES protection, how’s this for a kicker? If you somehow lose or forget your password, you’ll have to perform a “secure erase” to wipe the drive clean in order to gain access. That’s hardcore security for only $149.

Media streamers were a dime a dozen at this year’s show, so only a truly envelope-pushing home entertainment system would rise above the others to take the crown as best in class: the Logitech Squeezebox Duet Network Media Player.

Simply hook up the receiver to a stereo system or home entertainment center and you can stream music from your Mac or PC via Wi-Fi. Multiple Squeezebox Duet systems allow multimedia mavens to sync the receivers together to broadcast a song throughout the home, or more remarkably, listen to different songs in each room. Courtesy of Logitech’s SqueezeNetwork, the $399 Squeezebox Duet features always-on Internet radio and aggregation (from sources such as MP3Tunes, Pandora, and Rhapsody) that lets you stream music even when your notebook is off.

It’s been a long time coming, but the much-anticipated Slacker Portable is ready to shake up the digital music world. Available in 15-, 25-, and 40-station capacities (Slacker measures the storage by the number of stations, as each station contains dozens upon dozens of songs), the Slacker Portable allows users to sync their favorite tracks from Slacker’s online Internet radio service via USB 2.0 or over the air via Wi-Fi, and to toss in a mix of their own MP3, WMA, and AAC files.

The built-in touch strip and scroll wheel make it simple to navigate the beautiful (and massive) 4-inch display, which allows music fans to view album art, reviews, and artist bios. All in all, the Slacker Portable faithfully recreates the look and feel of the web-based application, and looks to be the most intriguing player of 2008.

One thing that can be said firmly is that 2008 is going to be quite a year in notebooks, and with those notebooks people are going to want strong peripherals that make their system’s features stand out. Logitech’s diNovo Mini is a palm-sized wireless keyboard that lets you sit on your couch and control your PC.

The svelte black and silver Bluetooth 2.0 diNovo isn’t only stylish enough to keep in your living room, but the keyboard controls are comfortable and very simple to use. We love the orange and green backlighting and the unique ClickPad pointing device, which, based on the flick of a switch, can serve as either a touchpad for point and click browsing or as a directional pad to navigate menus within Windows Media Center.

The Logitech diNovo’s awesome form factor and price of $150.00 stood out to us amongst every other accessory we have seen at the show.

Whether you’re looking to share PowerPoint slides in the conference room or watch HD content on a big screen, you can’t go wrong with the highly versatile Optoma HD65. In a convention hall crowded full of new projectors, the HD65 stood out because of its low price, light weight, and superior image quality.

Sporting a Texas Instruments DLP for enhanced colors and brightness, a native 720p resolution, 1,600 lumens, a 4000:1 contrast ratio, a slew of connectivity ports (HDMI 1.3, VGA, component, composite, S-Video, +12v trigger, and USB), and a $999 MSRP, the HD65 is a projector that every road warrior should have in tow.