day 2 from ces 2005
Live from CES 2005 in Las Vegas, Nevada

By Executive Editor Sean Gibson & Associate Editor Greg Gibson

More than 1.5 million square feet showcase the hottest consumer electronics products and technology in emerging product categories such as digital imaging, wireless technology, electronic gaming and broadband at the 2005 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world’s largest annual trade show for consumer technology.

Second Day Impressions - An Overview

Yes – it DID snow in Las Vegas, and then it turned to rain – not a good thing when you have 1.2 gigawatts of electricity in the CES pavilions. However, your brave team of reporters from NextGenElectronics and GamingIllustrated braved the elements and brought you the best of CES day 2.

The 2005 Edition of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was just as big as last year’s but there is a significant increase in attendance. Las Vegas is a natural draw for crowds, but this year’s CES should set a new record for a single event, despite terrible weather. Of note, we did actually find the SONY pavilion – it is hidden in the back of a long deserted hallway in the rear area of the North Concourse… to enter you go into a double door entrance like a movie premier to a poor grade B movie. Not too impressive for one of the leaders in technology… we will actually visit their pavilion tomorrow now that we have found Waldo.

The biggest winner of CES 2005 appears to be SAMSUNG. They certainly have the best pavilion – packed with incredible products, numerous innovations, and the best sales/marketing support team on the floor. But it is the incredible SAMSUNG products that are stealing the headlines and making heads turn:

• 102 inch (no kidding) HDTV plasma HDTV [model Z102] – the world’s largest set at 1080p resolution.

• Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) is working extremely well with the new LCDs, DLPs, and Plasmas – the DNIe will increase the density of the picture through interpolation – providing a picture 6 times denser and providing a noticeable increase in picture clarity.

• Wireless 50” HD Plasma HDTV [HP-P5091] (no connectors to the set – the set uses IEEE802.11a wireless technology). Only downside is that the set is not going to be available in the US in 2005.

In addition, our NextGenElectronics CES Award for Best Product is Samsung’s first commercial 1080p DLP TV - the 56" HLP5688W due to hit the US market in Feb/March with an MSRP of $5,200. This pedestal DLP TV provides super-high (1920x1080) resolution and progressive scanning for incredible video-image quality. The 3000:1 contrast ratio keeps colors lifelike and vibrant, while Samsung's enhanced Digital Natural Image Engine (DNIe) takes the signal from any kind of input and turns it into stunning picture. The set is Digital Cable Ready (DCR) with a built-in CableCARD eliminating the need for a set-top box for digital cable program viewing. For those of you who are waiting to buy a good HDTV, this is the one you have been waiting for – we will be providing a special HDTV report later this week and the advances in DLP technology have made this the preference over plasma and LCD.

However, there were a few other pavilions that deserve mention:

• SANYO unveiled their new line of LCD HDTVs in 15”-20”-23” with an 8ms refresh rate (this is the critical factor in LCD quality).

• LG’s 50” [50P42DR] plasma set with a built in 160 Gigabyte HDD digital video recorder – it will provide 14-15 hours of HD recording and 30+ hours of standard definition tv.

Also, in our world tour of CES2005 we also went to the car audio pavilion and for anyone who is a car audiophile, this place rocks – literally. “We don’t need no stinking trunk – we can put monster speakers there!” My glasses were vibrating, the floor was undulating like an earthquake, and several members of the public lost control of their body… tricked out cars were everywhere – including cars with 30 speakers and FINDING NEMO playing on a 20 inch front console LCD display.

Some Great Stuff Coming Your Way

There was a lot we missed on Day 1, so we spent the day in the smaller pavilions and found some real gems:

• We were able to meet up with the brass from Abit, makers of some great motherboards and video cards. Featured at the Fatal1ty booth, Abit has partnered with the gaming guru to come out with motherboards that meet the boy wonder's specific wants and needs - which remarkably reflect what the PC gaming enthusiast is dying to have in their gaming rigs. The real exciting news from Abit is the release of the NForce4 motherboard, which will be the first Abit board to feature the AMD64 chip architecture, as well as several PCI-X slots for the absolute top end performance today on a PC. We look forward to developing this story further with Abit's impressive products and people.

• PROTON was one of the original high end HDTV manufacturers that has fallen on rough times lately. Their products have historically been considered industrial-quality product, with long lifetime and high reliability. We were very glad to see a resurgence in their product line (direct tube, LCD, and plasma) and will be following up with PROTON in the near future.

• EPSON was noticed last year for their efforts in 3-LCD panel projection sets. As we noted last year, their primary technology (3-LCD) is based on three separate small HD LCD units. A lamp projects off the LCDs with each LCD reflecting one of the three primary colors (RGB) onto the screen. As the LCDs are smaller and virtually have no weight, the 3-LCD projection system is much thinner (typically 16 inches deep) and weighs much less than the 3-tube projection sets. This year EPSON has continued to refine their 3-LCD systems and frankly, the results are startling – excellent picture quality with better color (rivaling the plasmas for color depth). We will be including EPSON in our upcoming article on “HDTV – NOW YOU CAN BUY” [Readers will quickly recall that NextGenElectronics has withheld recommending any technology and has long recommended consumers wait – the wait will soon be over in the 2nd quarter of 2005]

• OPTOMA has come out with a fantastic new product, which is receiving the NextGenElectronics Home Theater BEST OF CES 2005 AWARD for their new 480p (non-HD) projector with DVD built in for $1495. This unit provides an excellent gaming projector with built-in speakers, and at 9-feet from the wall can project an 80 inch image that will knock your socks off for a non-HD picture.

• FLEXIGLOW is a new company that makes two of the coolest gaming products we saw at the CES2005 – a backlit mouse pad with a super-coat surface that allows optical mice to perform optimally yet has virtually no friction so the mouse literally glides effortlessly over the pad; and their backlit multi-media keyboard! With computer cases having internal neon lights, you had to realize someone would come up with a neon keyboard and a neon mousepad – and FLEXIGLOW is the company with the hot new gamer product at the show. Look for GamingIllustrated to do a product review soon.

• PNY gets the special NextGenElectronics award for the COOLEST ACCESSORY AT CES2005 – their flash rom drives which come in college logos and one (right out of our favorite show ALIAS) in a working executive pen! The pen is absolutely cool and is the MUST HAVE GIFT that everyone can afford to give. For example, you can give this to your boss on boss’ day and it will guarantee that raise you always wanted. This pen is just too cool. More good news from PNY is some amazing microdrives and the latest in all the media types that make taking pictures and storing MP3s a fun, reliable, and safe practice.

• Occasionally we have the fortunate luck to uncover a bit of an unknown gem at the show, and that's exactly what we believe we've found with a small but growing company called DiscGear. Manufacturers of CD/DVD storage systems, they have a very impressive breadth of product that includes a portable case that holds plenty of CDs (or DVDs) ... and has the durability to last being run over by a Hummer! Yes, its true, and it also protects media in up to 400 degree weather. Also on display at the both was a remarkable 50 and 100 desktop CD storage solutions that utilize a catalog, button, and slider, and allows you to simply "pick" out your CD without flipping through anything. NextGen is looking forward to a future review of the DiscGear product line... so stay tuned for this up-and-comer.

• Although many don't know the technology is even on the market now, Plextor has released a brand new DVD +/- RW solution that will make PC enthusiasts absolutely drool. Why? It's 16X speed ... it's also dual layer compatible ... and it's also SerialATA! Plextor also released a new video import/export device that is the only one to day that NextGen Electronics has seen that supports the very popular DiVX layer format. Good things are definitely on the way from this market leader.

• A good businessman knows their market – and you gotta love the non-electronic businesses that are doing very well at this show – the massage chairs and sauna manufacturers! After walking for 6 hours, the typical CES attendee is absolutely beat – so what better thing to sell is there than a recliner that vibrates and massages your tired muscles? Yes, there were several pavilions doing incredible business... you gotta love America.

You also had to feel sorry for several of the presentations – in particular, Motorola – who built an outdoor ski jump, hired some XGamers to do super jumps, imported snow, just to have the entire exhibit drenched and ruined by mother nature. This was NOT a cheap effort by Moto that went, literally, down the drain.