Best of Consumer Electronics Show 2011

It is the year of the gadgets in the technology sector. With all the latest technologies in place, it is now the time to mobilize these technologies and make them handy and available on-the-go at the consumer end. The trend is well set with the innovations in smart phones, tablets and connectivity. The recently concluded CES event at Nevada was a clear indication of where the markets are and what the technology innovators are focusing on.

The CES, Consumer Electronics Show is a major international technology-related trade show conducted every year. It has been the curtain-raiser for many promising technologies in the recent past like the HD, blue-ray Disc, 3DTVs; and in 2011, tablet-PCs have been the show-stealer. Thanks to the tremendous success of the iPad from Apple Inc, who have managed to sell around 14million units of the device. Many are following suit, and the avalability of a solid platform in Android has so much quickened the race. Many big players in the consumer electronics like Motorola, Samsung are coming up with their own android tablets and the CES event 2011 was the perfect stage to showcase their gadgets.

Now before we take a look at some of the unique catchy tablets with distinct features, here is an information. There were a total of 80 different tablet-PCs introduced in this 4-day event, out of which 47 were android tablets. But out of all these devices a few stood for their own discreet features.

Motorola Xoom

This 10.1 inch tablet from Motorola was the one and only tablet in the event to run an Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS, which is yet to be commercially released. Its key features are a 1Ghz dual core processor(NVIDIA Tegra 2), 1 GB RAM, a 4G connectivity and of course, the Android 3.0. Hosting the latest Android OS is a key advantage for this tablet, as it is believed that the Android Honeycomb has updates that are hardware dependent. In other words, the existing android tablets might not be able to upgrade to the new OS.

Notion Ink Adam

Before I move on to tell you what this tablet is all about, here is an interesting piece of information. This Android tablet is from an Indian company Notion Ink and was arguably hailed as one of the most unique tablets at the CES event. This device introduces a lot of unique features that are not only new to the iPad, but to the entire tablet world. When launched in February, Adam will be the first tablet-PC to have a swivel camera(a 3megapixel camera hosted on top of the device which is able to turn 185 degrees top-down). The tablet has a 10 inch screen with Pixel Qi technology, that enables the users to read the screen even under direct sunlight. The device has a dual core processor, an SD card slot, 3 USB ports, 1080p video output, supports multi-tasking, Flash 10.0 and a battery life that enables 16 hours of video viewing. On the downside, it is still unclear, if the tablet would support the Android market apps.

Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid

Here is a real game changer. If you are looking for that extra mile that allows you to choose one tablet over another, here is what Lenovo offers. It is a 10.1 inch screen Android 2.2 tablet that comes with a laptop, or vice versa. In other words, IdeaPad U1 Hrbrid is a notebook, that has a detachable screen. When the screen is attached, the device works as a notebook which runs windows 7 on a 2GB of RAM memory, 320GB hard drive, and processor 1.2GHz Intel Core i5. And when the screen is detached, the screen is a LePad that runs Android 2.2 on 1GB of RAM memory and 32GB of storage, and 1.3GHz Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon processor. The screen has dual cameras – 2mp front-facing, 5mp back-facing. That is some serious innovation and it would be of no surprise if we see a series of market leaders come up with similar devices following suit.

Tremont Electric nPowerPeg

This gadget is a perfect example of green technology. The nPowerPeg is a personal energy generator, a handy device when tossed in your backpack, captures and stores your kinetic energy as you go about your daily work. It’s the world’s first passive kinetic energy charger for hand-held electronics and makes renewable energy generation personal. Performance-wise, 30 minutes of letting this thing jostle around in your backpack translates to about the equivalent amount of battery life for an iPod nano.

The CES event 2011 clearly indicates that the year ahead is the year of the tablets. Or in a broader perspective, it is about bringing services to the very hands of the consumer, whenever and wherever possible.