[freudling]

Engadget has the best coverage. I was there only the first day, had to take off. My god, I am blown away by what's coming to market this year. It's incredible. Things have really heated up on the mobile space. Apple has a set of laurels in can rest on with how big its app store is, but what I saw is well beyond the hardware/software they have out.

I think this will be one of the best years ever for consumer technology. These guys have their guns loaded. I just can't believe what I saw, and what is now cropping up on sites like Engadget. What's cool though is much of this stuff will be on the market this year, a lot within a few months.

Lets look at smartphones. When the iPhone came out in 2007, it was groundbreaking. The iPhone still is a great device. But man has the competition been busy, and they are soon to flood the market with some amazing stuff. The current crop of smartphones set to launch, for instance, makes the iPhone 4 look old and boring.

For example, the Motorola Atrix was incredible. I haven't seen a screen like that on a smartphone, ever. And the fingerprint screen unlock is brilliant.

My favourite is Sony's Xperia Arc. This is one of the most beautiful, thin smartphones I've come across. Some of the best industrial design I have ever seen on a smartphone. I want this phone! The design... the bravia engine... the screen... Only downer is that it lacks a front-facing camera, but the rear camera is a juicy 8 MP. If the quality is there (Sony's had some problems with touch-screen sensitivity, I might consider adding this to my gear set).

I have to give Sony credit, they do have great industrial design, on par with Apple.

Tablets... more tablets than anything. Too many. Some interesting designs/specs floating around.

[Laminar]

I'm only interested in a 10+" tablet. Anything smaller than that would be unusable.

[ort888]

What are you guys' thoughts on tablet screen size?

[brassplayersrock²]

I only use things that are 10 inches or longer, but no more then 16.3 inches. Any suggestions?

[The Final Dakar]

"Official" thread, huh?

[besson3c]

50"+

[brassplayersrock²]

Stop bragging besson

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

"Official" thread, huh?

Warrants a complaint methinks.

[Laminar]

Should have been public.

[imitchellg5]

Last year CES had some of the cheapest and most unimaginative tablets around. Everyone knew the iPad was coming and was rushing to get something on the market without regards to quality. I'm not sure that any of the devices shown last year actually shipped.

This year things are a bit different. They've had a year to come up with something and a version of Android to work with instead of Windows 7 (yet some still stick with Windows). Tegra II is actually viable now, which is cool.

The phones this year are pretty insane. The Atrix is probably one of the most amazing phones I've ever seen. However, I think that marketing these new devices is going to be difficult. 14 new Android phone on AT&T this year? Why? I'm all for choice, but that's just going to confuse the heck out of everyone. And even now I have no idea how VZW's new phones will fit into their lineup.

One thing I wish would go away is the industrial design of many of these phones and tablets. A rectangular slate with rounded edges and a chrome or aluminum ring around the front. That design wasn't even particularly great when Apple made the first iPhone, and it's a lot worse today. It's like '80s sneaker design, people are just following the rules established by the popular brand when we know these companies are capable of better.

I'm trying hard to see what's so great about this new Atrix phone. How will it make my life better?

[imitchellg5]

960 x 540 resolution, fingerprint reader, dual LED flash, dual core processor, 1 Gb of RAM, a dock with 3 USB ports out and HDMI, etc.

Link

[Brien]

Nobody has mentioned the fact that Nvidia is building an ARM desktop CPU? I think that has more far-reaching impact than another flavor-of-the-month Android phone (as quick as these things are coming out, that's all they are).

I've seen AMD building up interest in ARM as well, so this may be foreshadowing a general shift in the industry away from x86. About time.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by hayesk 

I'm trying hard to see what's so great about this new Atrix phone. How will it make my life better?

I really don't like Motorola, but this is pretty awesome. Motorola took the next logical step and started thinking about the phone not as a phone, but as a small PC that can power big screens. Give this five years and it will be the norm.

Very, very cool.

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

960 x 540 resolution, fingerprint reader, dual LED flash, dual core processor, 1 Gb of RAM, a dock with 3 USB ports out and HDMI, etc.

Link

Wow. That's quite impressive. This maybe the final nail in the coffin for Netbooks.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

Wow. That's quite impressive. This maybe the final nail in the coffin for Netbooks.

Yep. I think the vision is that eventually one day you'll just put your phone into a dock and it'll be your main device. It's pretty clear right now that this will be quite possible within a few years.

[ort888]

Dock?

I envision a future where you just walk up to a screen and it detects the phone in your pocket and asks if you want to log in.

[The Final Dakar]

That's not a phone if pocket, but I'd love to "log in" baby.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Yep. I think the vision is that eventually one day you'll just put your phone into a dock and it'll be your main device. It's pretty clear right now that this will be quite possible within a few years.

It's interesting, these top-end smartphones this year are bigger. Bigger screens... I like it, too. It still fits in my pocket, and using a bluetooth ear piece, I rarely take out my phone to talk on it. Surfing the web/video/email/text message all better with a slightly bigger screen than the standard smartphone, like the iPhone. We'll see what happens.

[ort888]

I know Steve Jobs says I don't want a bigger screen... but I do.

I would like an iPhone with a slightly bigger 4.25ish inch screen.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I know Steve Jobs says I don't want a bigger screen... but I do.

I would like an iPhone with a slightly bigger 4.25ish inch screen.

Ya, after playing with the Sony Xperia Arc I like the bigger screen better.

[Brien]

Me too. 4" is doable without making the device much bigger.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I know Steve Jobs says I don't want a bigger screen... but I do.

I would like an iPhone with a slightly bigger 4.25ish inch screen.

The iPhone is the only high-end smartphone right now with a screen as small as 3.5" off the top of my head. 4" is about perfect in my opinion, with 4.3" being a solid max and great for media consumption.

[mduell]

Engadget's coverage has been so voluminous it's kind of annoying. 100-200 posts every day.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Engadget's coverage has been so voluminous it's kind of annoying. 100-200 posts every day.

Ya. What's clear though is that smartphones are bigger, and tablets rule.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Engadget's coverage has been so voluminous it's kind of annoying. 100-200 posts every day.

Their entire team is there and they are the official news partner or something for CES.

[Phileas]

You know what I'm really digging right now? AirPlay.

We've got a Mac Mini in the living room, acting as a media centre. We've got an old 3G iPhone (without a SIM card, acting as an iPod) in the dining room, powering a set of speakers. In the kitchen, an old Airport Express is connected to an old B&O radio.

As I am typing this I am sitting in said kitchen, listening to an episode of This American Live being streamed from the TAL app from my iPhone to my kitchen radio. Awesome.

[freudling]

HP... interesting move. They dodged the CES this year, and are doing a media event on Feb. 9. Very Appleish of them. Why get watered down in the rest of the noise when you can attract all the attention to yourself when everything has calmed down...

From this video, it's pretty certain now HP is really pushing for WebOS. Looks like we'll see the WebOS tablet and other connected devices on Feb. 9th. Really excited about this. If the hardware is up to snuff, this will be the iPad contender. iPad will continue to dominate, but it's not going to take all of the tablet marketshare. HP is one of the only ones who will contend with iPad, outside of the Samsung Galaxy Tab/2 and Motorola XOOM.

I predict, all things being equal, that HP WebOS takes about 15% tablet share this year, Android 20%, others 5%, and iPad the rest (60%).

HP's Todd Bradley all but confirms webOS tablet for February 9th event, promises even more devices -- Engadget

Go WebOS!

[Salty]

Honestly the specs on the Android devices these days seem awesome. But I can't get over the lousily done windowing UI that Android has. A friend was mentioning something that was posted on daring fireball a while ago that went over why the UI of Android feels so sluggish even on killer hardware.

The fact that Google can put billions of dollars of other people's money into Android but can't even design a UI that doesn't feel sluggish on a 1Ghz ARM chip, (iOS felt fine on a 400Mhz chip if you remember.) is pathetic.

[imitchellg5]

The stock Android UI is very snappy even on an original Droid still, skinned Android brings even the 1.2 GHz Droid 2 Global to its knees.

[Phileas]

As per usual, it's the carrier's asshattery that's causing the problems.