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Intro:
CES 2009 ended on January 10th but the fun continues to this day. Part of the benefit of going to CES is the ability to meet with companies and see new products. While the show was nothing like previous years, it was good to see some new products being released in these tough economic times. And no, we don't expect a turnaround before 2010.
The last part of the show for the ASE Labs crew ended with a visit to the Sands Expo Center. The Sands had two shows running at the same time and we will bring some coverage of AEE in another article. CES at the Sands also covered less floor space than previous years. Crowds were thin on Saturday and Sunday and many companies simply didn't bother opening their booths. A tip for companies, don't come to a trade show without proper support for the entire show.
The fact that many booths were closing on the second to last day of the show is telling in itself. Usually there is a frantic pack-up in the last couple of hours on the last day of the show... This year, it happened on Saturday. Going to the international section yielded some good buys for samples on Saturday which is really unheard of at CES since the people want to keep them till the last day of the show. Not this year, though.
While trade show coverage is something we like doing at ASE Labs, our main focus is to provide fair and objective reviews of consumer electronic products. We welcome any company that wants ASE Labs to review your product to contact us by clicking the "»About Us" at the bottom of the page.
Lian-Li:
Lian-Li was showing off a few cases at the Sands. Many enthusiasts should know of Lian-Li when they made a splash with their all metal cases. Lian-Li has moved on to provide more lavish enclosures and even though they make a good product, getting support is a bit tough. Regardless, they were showing off some nice new designs like the one pictured above. It seems that all case manufacturers are moving to the front drive cage fan placement thing.
Lenmar:
ASE Labs is moving to cover a more consumer electronic focus and to bring these types of products to ASE Labs we are showing off companies that deliver new innovations. Lenmar was showing off a new solar panel product for charging cell phones. We have pictures, but instead of showing it, we will be doing a review this year to give a full objective opinion. The products we have in hand are also fairly useful. The first is a cell phone charger that can charge itself since it has a Li-ion battery. I made the suggestion to a few companies over the years about this and it is good to see they finally made a product like it. Who wants a single use charger for their phones?
The second product that is very handy is a tiny USB power charger for camera batteries that are 3.6v or 3.7v. Using a Canon SD950IS battery, the charger easily hooked on and charged the battery without issue. These sort of products are very interesting and we hope to have more Lenmar products to show on ASE Labs in 2009.
Super Talent:
Super Talent was actually showing off a few new entries in their product lines. One interesting one is the Godfather USB thumb-drive. This flash drive is a licensed product from Paramount for use with the Godfather movie IP. The drive contains a few lines, scenes, and other tidbits from the movies. It is good to see a company moving in a new direction. Flash drive are fairly boring and Super Talent aims to fix that. They also have the new triple channel DDR3 memory kits as well as other enthusiast products on display. It was one of the more crowded booths so it was nice to see.
SDXC:
The best flash standard is coming out with a brand new specification called SDXC. XC stands for eXtended Capacity and will be able to handle up to 2 Terabytes. Not only will it support enhanced sizes, but speeds will increase to up to 104 MB per second in 2009 and a whopping 300 MB/s in 2010. SDXC might make a debut in some netbooks with that type of performance, maybe. The form factor remains the same as do the pin-outs. It is up to the device maker to make the card slot backwards compatible but it will probably not be an issue as SD to SDHC was.
Random:
Some more things from the last days of the show. Watch out for this amazing toy gun with a flying duck. When you shoot the duck, it falters for a moment and continues flying until you shoot it two more times and then it falls. It was an amazing toy to see work. It is coming out this year. Looks like a hot item for 2009. The AMD booth was unmanned at the Sands and was pretty sad. We found the AMD guy playing Guitar Hero at another booth since it wasn't busy. AMD needs some better PR people running their marketing. Click-free had an interesting product that connects any removable storage into a backup solution. We've heard good things about this company, but can't speak for first hand accounts. Body Glove had some nice cases on display at CES. There was a Blackberry storm case that looked great but it isn't anywhere to be found on their site. If you have a Storm, check out Body Glove's cases.
Hopefully CES continues for years to come and weathers the economic storm. There will be many companies that will go under this year so the show in 2010 probably won't be much better, but ASE Labs will continue to bring you the latest trends in consumer electronics.
CES 2009 ended on January 10th but the fun continues to this day. Part of the benefit of going to CES is the ability to meet with companies and see new products. While the show was nothing like previous years, it was good to see some new products being released in these tough economic times. And no, we don't expect a turnaround before 2010.
The last part of the show for the ASE Labs crew ended with a visit to the Sands Expo Center. The Sands had two shows running at the same time and we will bring some coverage of AEE in another article. CES at the Sands also covered less floor space than previous years. Crowds were thin on Saturday and Sunday and many companies simply didn't bother opening their booths. A tip for companies, don't come to a trade show without proper support for the entire show.
The fact that many booths were closing on the second to last day of the show is telling in itself. Usually there is a frantic pack-up in the last couple of hours on the last day of the show... This year, it happened on Saturday. Going to the international section yielded some good buys for samples on Saturday which is really unheard of at CES since the people want to keep them till the last day of the show. Not this year, though.
While trade show coverage is something we like doing at ASE Labs, our main focus is to provide fair and objective reviews of consumer electronic products. We welcome any company that wants ASE Labs to review your product to contact us by clicking the "»About Us" at the bottom of the page.
Lian-Li:
Lian-Li was showing off a few cases at the Sands. Many enthusiasts should know of Lian-Li when they made a splash with their all metal cases. Lian-Li has moved on to provide more lavish enclosures and even though they make a good product, getting support is a bit tough. Regardless, they were showing off some nice new designs like the one pictured above. It seems that all case manufacturers are moving to the front drive cage fan placement thing.
Lenmar:
ASE Labs is moving to cover a more consumer electronic focus and to bring these types of products to ASE Labs we are showing off companies that deliver new innovations. Lenmar was showing off a new solar panel product for charging cell phones. We have pictures, but instead of showing it, we will be doing a review this year to give a full objective opinion. The products we have in hand are also fairly useful. The first is a cell phone charger that can charge itself since it has a Li-ion battery. I made the suggestion to a few companies over the years about this and it is good to see they finally made a product like it. Who wants a single use charger for their phones?
The second product that is very handy is a tiny USB power charger for camera batteries that are 3.6v or 3.7v. Using a Canon SD950IS battery, the charger easily hooked on and charged the battery without issue. These sort of products are very interesting and we hope to have more Lenmar products to show on ASE Labs in 2009.
Super Talent:
Super Talent was actually showing off a few new entries in their product lines. One interesting one is the Godfather USB thumb-drive. This flash drive is a licensed product from Paramount for use with the Godfather movie IP. The drive contains a few lines, scenes, and other tidbits from the movies. It is good to see a company moving in a new direction. Flash drive are fairly boring and Super Talent aims to fix that. They also have the new triple channel DDR3 memory kits as well as other enthusiast products on display. It was one of the more crowded booths so it was nice to see.
SDXC:
The best flash standard is coming out with a brand new specification called SDXC. XC stands for eXtended Capacity and will be able to handle up to 2 Terabytes. Not only will it support enhanced sizes, but speeds will increase to up to 104 MB per second in 2009 and a whopping 300 MB/s in 2010. SDXC might make a debut in some netbooks with that type of performance, maybe. The form factor remains the same as do the pin-outs. It is up to the device maker to make the card slot backwards compatible but it will probably not be an issue as SD to SDHC was.
Random:
Some more things from the last days of the show. Watch out for this amazing toy gun with a flying duck. When you shoot the duck, it falters for a moment and continues flying until you shoot it two more times and then it falls. It was an amazing toy to see work. It is coming out this year. Looks like a hot item for 2009. The AMD booth was unmanned at the Sands and was pretty sad. We found the AMD guy playing Guitar Hero at another booth since it wasn't busy. AMD needs some better PR people running their marketing. Click-free had an interesting product that connects any removable storage into a backup solution. We've heard good things about this company, but can't speak for first hand accounts. Body Glove had some nice cases on display at CES. There was a Blackberry storm case that looked great but it isn't anywhere to be found on their site. If you have a Storm, check out Body Glove's cases.
Hopefully CES continues for years to come and weathers the economic storm. There will be many companies that will go under this year so the show in 2010 probably won't be much better, but ASE Labs will continue to bring you the latest trends in consumer electronics.