Finally back and recovering from the 2008 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It’s always jarring to go straight from a nice, long holiday vacation to the CES three-ring circus. My impression of the show in one word: disappointed. Maybe the most exciting thing was that Garmin had a GPS repeater set up at their booth to get a live feed for demo devices. Or perhaps that 150″ Panasonic plasma. But isn’t this the consumer electronics show? Come on guys, that’s an ego trip, not a consumer product. And Garmin shares have fallen nearly 25% since the show began, so obviously the Street didn’t like the repeaters as much as I did. Not much new for phones either, although I liked the GPS-enabled Sony Ericsson W760. But hardly big news. Truthfully, connected devices were the theme this year. Garmin announced MSN Direct-powered PNDs like the Nuvi 780 and 880. Magellan had the Maestro Elite 5340 with Google Local Search via two-way connectivity over GPRS, but that will set you back $1300 and $40/mo. And don’t forget Dash Navigation. Last year’s big news of the show was the iPhone, but that wasn’t even at CES. So here’s some food for thought - is the CES hype too big for its own good?
Jan 14
January 15th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Sounds kind of like Comdex during it’s last few years. I bet CES will die soon.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I thought about Comdex last week. At least half of the people exhibiting and attending at CES had no business being there. A recession might at least shrink the show dramatically next year.