CES 2010

If you're hanging out at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) you might see Panasonic Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Sony Corporation, and TDK Corporation being given a 62nd annual Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for their contributions to the Blue Laser Optical Systems for Consumer Playback. What a mouthful, here comes some more: this was announced by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and their contributions were said to be "fundamental for the distribution and recording of full HD content on optical discs at consumer price levels."

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The Entourage eDGe dual-display clamshell netbook is great, if you don't mind toting a rucksack all the time, but what if you'd prefer something a little more pocket-friendly?  Tucked away at CES 2010 was Astri's E Ink ereader, an Android-based mini-me version of the eDGe with a 5-inch Wacom touchscreen epaper panel on the left and a 4.8-inch WVGA LCD touchscreen on the right.

Video demo after the cut

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Home automation controller specialists iPort have been talking about using an iPod touch as a budget A/V controller for years now - we last wrote about their in-wall docking cradle back in 2007, no less - but if you've been looking for a more permanent solution than a simple dock then they've a prototype that may appeal.  At CES 2010 last week the company was showing off the iPort Control Dock, intended to semi-permanently mount an iPod touch for in-wall use.

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With the onslaught of gadgets, concept designs and prototypes at CES 2010, it's easy to forget that behind each is a design team slaving away to get things ready in time for the show.  Over at Lenovo's Design Matters blog they're unsurprisingly pretty keen on the Lenovo Skylight; however even if you're not a fan of the smartbook itself you'll probably be interested by the tale of how Richard Sapper - designer of the original ThinkPad - came up with the prototype (including a beautiful olive wood mockup) in just a few weeks time.

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Look out Creative, Viliv are creeping up behind you.  The company have been showing off their latest touchscreen device, and while you might assume it's another MID in actual fact Viliv are describing the P3 as a PMP; either way, you get an indecently skinny 9.8mm chassis, 3.7-inch AMOLED 800 x 480 touchscreen (Nexus One we're looking at you), 800MHz Cortex A8 processor and dual-booting Android and Windows CE.

Video demo after the cut

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We called Iomega's iConnect a Pogoplug derivative back when the company announced it last week, but having caught up with the company at CES 2010 it seems we may have been a bit too harsh.  Ostensibly a straightforward way to get USB storage hooked up to your network, in fact sharing HDDs and flash drives is just one string to the iConnect's bow.  Check out our demo video and more details after the cut.

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ASUS managed to put together one of the more interesting CES 2010 press conferences, thanks to their Bang & Olufsen laptop collaboration and Waveface concept, but curiously they didn't make mention of the much-rumored Eee Tablet.  However that's not to say the touchscreen device wasn't on show; both Carrypad and jkkmobile discovered a Tegra 2 based slate described as the ASUS Eee PC Touch Series at NVIDIA's stand.

Video demo after the cut

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New from Onkyo at CES 2010 was the PA-MC5500 multi-channel power amplifier, intended to accompany their PR-SC5507 9.2-channel AV network controller preamp processor. The PA-MC5500 has a matching 9-channels of amplification to the company’s flagship pre-pro, each capable of delivering 150W.

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We spent some time auditioning Parasound/Atlantic Technology's high-end stereo channel setup at the Venetian during CES 2010. We didn’t go there just for the sake of John Curl's newest Halo-series JC3 Phono Preamp, with its heavy, triple-shielded 2-U chassis, but to check out Atlantic Technology's AT-1 high performance speakers with their potentially revolutionary H-PAS bass technology.

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Hivision aren't exactly a household name, but if you fancy the idea of a $149 netbook running Android then you should start praying that they become one.  In some distant corner of CES 2010 the company had brought along their latest models, 7-inch netbooks based on ARM Cortex A9 processors with the Google mobile OS, and according to Charbax they're not half bad.

Update: It's looking more likely that these netbooks use older ARM9 processors, not the newer Cortex A9.  That makes it even more impressive that they're demonstrating the speedy browsing experience talked about after the cut.  Thanks to those commenters who pointed this out.

Video demo after the cut

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Lenovo's Lephone announcement at CES 2010 last week fell somewhat into the shadow of another new Android smartphone from a big-name manufacturer, the Dell Mini 3, but that's not to say the Lenovo handset has no distinguishing features.  Snap-on accessory keyboards aren't new - the LG Versa on Verizon is a recent example - but we're particularly feeling Lenovo's curvy layout.

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CTL has been offering cheap netbooks aimed at the education market for a while now. The last machine we saw from the firm was the CTL 2go E10 back in September 2009. CTL announced new versions of its netbook and a new laptop at CES.

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