Gadgetory

hi everyone a great Needleman here at CES in Las Vegas it's what's today Thursday and this is CES then depth now we just announced the best of CES Awards the cnet best of CES Awards I want to talk about those with two of the main people who put those awards programs together that war program together that's to my meteorite Lindsay turn time the editor-in-chief of cnet reviews and John Falcone execu meda turn to her right wow what a great lineup of products we had this year it's pretty exciting um so I want to talk about some of the main products and then some of the how we come up with these the decision now we choose these products out of I think there are 30 100 exhibitors here at the show probably they're all introducing five products or 10 products or in the case of Samsung or LG probably dozens of products each and of those we picked 10 then the number one product because it's already all over the web was that LG 55 inch oled display let's talk about that product why is that the best product of all CES it's we've been waiting for OLED TVs for years now and they've finally arrived and there it's everybody I've talked to says you know you can go oh it's a pretty TV and it's thin and then you look at it and you're blown away the picture is amazing the bezel is pretty much not there it's just a beautiful thing to look at it's four millimeters thick and we'd see no LED TVs before even here at CES but they were always 20 inches maybe 30 inches the largest one they they've shown it was always a prototype this is what we're being told is a real product coming later this year 55 inches so you know a real size and what's really cool about OLED is it kind of combines the best about plasma and LCD so it's got the thinness and the energy efficiency of LCD but it has the better picture quality of plasma like infinite blacks it's a self emitting displays there's no backlight so there's no this compromise to get with LCD yeah I would say if you and you know if you have a lot of we don't know how much it's going to cost yet but at we all know later in the year and it's probably going to be expensive but if you buy the price is going to come down at least LG is saying in a few years and if you buy a new TV two or three years from now this is the kind of chance TV it's going to be i just bought a TV wasn't like David start saving I wanted to point out this is really like neck-and-neck because samsung also at a 55-inch oled competitor and it was as close to a coin flip physically get and it was what made the difference while LG provided a little more data about it basically that's kind of interesting so if you're in a highly competitive space and you want to win an award the morning devotion editors the more information about information will tip the scale over by the way I went and I saw that LG display over and whatever one of the halls is that you're right it is spectacular it wasn't that it was mobbed to also i have to say i tried on the 3d glasses 2 is also a 3d display and although everybody who knows who watches me knows I can't stand 3d it was pretty cool and there was no crosstalk that is another hospital managed with pass no blasters very neat stuff now the audience winner this year was a product called the razor project Fiona first of all what is it and why is it called a project it's called a project because it's very much a prototype probably not real product but in terms of we don't expect it to be entering production anytime soon and there wasn't a lot of details on when we available whatnot but basically a Windows 8 tablet with a gaming centric Windows 8 tablet that has controls on the side of it kind of like a split PlayStation control there's a full pc with a gaming bent and it was just I don't think we had before a gaming PC that had the controller is built into it was just a tablet though yeah so the whole thing is embedded in a do you hold is the idea the only like a steering wheel and exactly that require a whole new gaming software then well I don't know if it has the the motion stuff but just having the controls on the air now of all the products and this was our the audience choice so this is based on cnet readers and viewers voting for this product was project product product project what were some of the other products that were in the Audience Choice category that also had a shot of winning the the accolades of the Phillies here so all of all 36 I think nominees overall were eligible and the two runners-up for I think the sony xperia s cell phone and what was the third one it's not coming to another sir that Sony Xperia S is actually really beautiful what's most xperia i think everyone was the seagate 4G enabled kind of nazdike a wireless hotspot that also was a server okay from seagate i believe ya audience that sounds like a good campaign there to get that product into the audience winners so now the sony xperia s it was close to be an audience choice winner in that product is that's a mobile phone what's so different about this particular mobile phone you know III think that's kind of segues us right into the suggestion of phones and tablets here at the show it's because Apple isn't here it's all about Android basic and it's just kind of the next wave of newer better android phones well except for the one at one which is actually when is look let's use that let's use that a segue to talk about what one in the category of mobile phones which was the Nokia Lumia 900 which is not an android phone now I found that that's our editors choices I found that to be a very interesting winner that an on android phone was the best cell phone of the show considering you know we got the galaxy note and all sorts of weird new phones cool new phones why the Nokia it's it's the best example of a Windows Phone out there right now and if any windows phone is going to make it the US market it's going to be this it felt kind of saying earlier this morning there's no compromises windows phone its 4G beautiful screen and camera it is a really a great form factor people see it they like it they want to touch it sigh with it it's very thin it's got that great aluminum frame it's it's it's the last best chance the last ad and I think a very very good phone now so the hardware is great the internals and the externals are great do you think that Windows come this time next year that we will be seeing windows seven phones be successful against the Android onslaught I think that if they are it's because of this phone really i'm not i wouldn't put money on it but i do know that every time somebody who hasn't seen a windows from current operating system takes a look at it you know people go on my head I don't even want to look at a windows phone but when they do get their hands on it they start playing the operating system they're almost always surprised and at the very least intrigued because the software is very different from that I used to I will oh and I would second that I have a demo windows phone right now and I would say to people after give it a look it's it's it's a good platform the app support of course is not there it's just in the third place but the phone itself and the built-in apps are quite good it's their place with like 30 or 40,000 ass yeah when there's tens of thousands of apps that if you know if you don't want to have a really deep bench of apps right all you really want us to take some picture and keep in touch with people and take a look at your calendar you're you're going to be it's enough it is except if you want to be in the Geico sphere and get all the cool new apps that all the little tiny starts are working on they're not working on windows phone 7 they can't afford to right no definitely not is definitely in third place and so it's I think there's a real uphill battle there because you're not going to win is that the windows team is just not going to get the kind of exposure from having this cutting-edge I think we have seemed to see how that compares against blackberry basically this blackberry is really suffering the marketplace and it'd be interesting to see if windows phone 7 makes inroads against Blackburn maybe more so than Android nine work now I just want to talk about this briefly is none of our cats tricular category which is car tech and I want to mention this because you talk about blackberry so there are no blackberry mobile phone products on our list but the QNX car to mobile apps platform was our car tech winner I just wanted to mention that people because that is kind of a vestige of the blackberry ecosystem in the car which i think is very interesting place which me of course qnx is a real-time operating system which relates a lot to transportation it's a good for things that there aren't that are more embedded so it's what they're building their next generation smartphone OS right as well we'll see if they make it that for him between you and me I'm like I'm not sure we'll see sorry blackberry okay uh now there are other interesting books out there what do you guys think was of all the products we saw here CS of all the top 10 of this the bestest he is the most important product was it the TV or their other products that was arguably more important to the technology economy than that I am really fascinated by the 3d printers there were two 3d printers on our list there was the MakerBot product and the free systems product right to make or maybe about part 1 because it can print in a couple colors by toad on colors you mean a couple of materials yes yes colored materials yeah going what I just love to think about is this idea that you know five ten years ago the process of creating words to certain extent videos became accessible to everyone so everybody became a publisher it changed the way that we consume media and information this product will let really anybody with a little bit of money it's two thousand dollars and as a friend who knows cat or fado cad make prototype products in their home and imagine that if that picks up people who are small inventors or just have a really interesting idea just start to make their own stuff I mean if you're wealthy and you can afford that you could just make toys for your kids in your house it's kind of it's a very interesting thing to think about to think about all the possibilities that could come from being able to quickly fabricate products in your own home John you going to get one make your own chest chest kits exactly I'm probably going to get one but I idea of that is really intriguing and they've been nothing it's been around for a while 3d printing but the president's like 50,000 to 20,000 to 5,000 now just two thousand dollars that's really kind of changing the game making it much more accessible now I was a little bit involved in the decision of the emerging tech category where the MakerBot was the one hour award there were there other categories that were very contentious where there was a lot of argument and how does that resolve I mean we thought I don't know how many editors here I did the math I think it's one percent of all editors journalists at CES are ours I'm not kidding but how do we make the decision when there is an argument to where the most argued about categories well the way that we the way just quickly the way that we come to this conclusion is that we have editors who are selecting their experts in a product category they're out on the floor they're writing about these they nominate three and then they decide that beat team decides to group which is going to win in that category and then all of the scene of editors get together in our editorial trailer and we we hashed it out everybody gets a pitch for the product that they think should wins in their category and then we talk about it we debate and then we vote and and where aside from arguing about 3d printers where we have the most contentiousness 3d printers was tough to choose between the MakerBot and they keep 3d one because they're so close it was similar on the Samsung and LG 55 inch OLED very similar products a lot of them were less contentious I mean it's my understanding the nokia was a unanimous decision among the four beat editors on cell phone so that was interesting and sometimes that says more about it then if it's unanimous and there's not a lot of contention that is fifth is interesting a fighting over something maybe a better indicator of success what do you think that looking at all the products that were here that all the products that want all the products are we're nominated do they as a group indicate particular important trends in the technology industry I mean art is thinness a trend or their other trends that you see reflected in these products I think I mean thinnest design there's a whole discussion in the tech world about moving past the specs and it's much more about design and user experience and I think that's very much on display here first of all it's like more specifically in certain categories I mean ultrabooks ultrabook told that was true that they every laptop shown here was pretty much an ultrabook but that almost made them not stand out so much which is why we won't the HP envy spectre which had a cool implementation of Gorilla Glass in the case and on the palm race and everything else so it took that idea and went a different way with the design that was kind of cool well the other interesting thing to note is that part of the reason we're in ultrabooks didn't win for us overall is because we're looking all these ultrabooks is saying well they don't they don't have the next one is operating system we're gonna have to wait till fall for windows 8 and all of this and for the new audio bridge in tow so we can't recommend pretty much an entire category because we think that what we're seeing now is a good hardware prototype that is not the full experience and so this just demonstrates how it a show like CES no matter how great an idea maybe there's a whole there's this whole ecosystem that we've been talking about and if the software or the services aren't there yet see there's the hardware speaking of not there next year at CES Microsoft will not be exhibiting but it will be the year when Windows 8 is here what is that going to do to all the vendors out there who are making windows products or that you flying without the the mothership support you think they'll be all right they'll be all right i mean when they say microsoft's not going to be here microsoft will be here it'll be here in partnerships it'll be here on hardware and certainly we know we've been a lot of stories about how there are 250 Apple employees here at meetings and roaming the floor same for facebook here and here are two different things so right like Google doesn't have a booth but there's a million Android devices and phones and tablets or things so they're very much here all right so we're at a time last thing a product you're most likely to buy from this list in the coming months well i just bought a TV but if i were going to buy a new TV i would buy the LG John probably quite get to hear that I think is really cool is this simple TV sort of d yeah break bringing your own storage EBR product that we always get question what's this cord cutting products and this product from little startup called simple TV looks really promising that was our home theater winner yes John Falcone Lindsey turn time thank you very much thank you i'm rafe needleman this has been CES in depth join us immediately after the show for the 404 join me tonight or this afternoon at five o'clock i'm going to have the CEO of MakerBot bre pettis here alone with kathy lewis from 3d systems talking about the economy of 3d printing and join me again tomorrow morning at ten a.m. for reporters roundtable talking about opportunities for startups here at CES thanks very much see tomorrow or tonight