This year's CES is now over. Aaron “Hairon” Baker kept us all up-to-date at all of the events that happened in Vegas over the past few days, and gave us an up close look at many of the devices that were announced. We saw tablets, phones, and even got a nice, long demo of Android's next update. Now that it's behind us, was it everything that you thought it would be?
If you entered the days of CES hoping for anything outside the realm of tablets, 4G, or Android, you were obviously going to be disappointed from the start. We had a fairly decent inclination of what to expect from CES this year, but that doesn't mean we weren't surprised by some things. I assumed most of the cell phone announcements would be kept under wraps until Mobile World Congress. Alas, AT&T made me eat my words. The day before CES was officially kick-started, they announced several phones, tablets, and their plans for LTE.
While all of the phones that were introduced seem to be very nice devices, there wasn't anything that truly impressed me. Take the ThunderBolt, for instance. It was highly anticipated, hyped by both HTC and Verizon, and it turned out to be a slightly modified EVO 4G eight months after the fact. It has a Snapdragon processor instead of the dual-core Tegra 2 like it was rumored to have – a huge letdown. I was more impressed with LG, a brand new player in the high-end smartphone world, than the one company we expected and hoped would blow us all away.
Usually after a convention like this, I really have to struggle with myself over which device I will have to talk myself out of next. To be honest, there wasn't a single phone that I felt like I absolutely must have. That could be because I just bought three phones that I'm perfectly content with, or it could be a lack of jaw-dropping features. Seeing that most of these phones won't launch for months ahead, I expected at least one combination of specs that would truly grab my attention. Not all of the phones we will see by mid-year have been announced yet, so I'll keep on wishing.
Tablets, however, are a totally different story. The PlayBook is definitely starting to look like a viable option, though the requirement of a bridged connection with a BlackBerry device is a huge drawback. The XOOM has me hooked and will slowly be eating away at my patience until it's officially available. Honeycomb is a huge leap forward for Android, and I want to get my hands on it STAT. Also, I was upset that there wasn't anything mentioned about the webOS tablet from HP and Palm and that Sony Ericsson bit their tongue on the mysterious PlayStation Phone/Xperia Play. These are possibly two of the most interesting things to pop up over the last few months, and I'm ready for some answers to the rumors.
Needless to say, CES this year was a little yawn-inducing. Though I'm sure it was different for the people experiencing it first-hand. There were few items that actually grabbed my attention, nothing that really puts me on the edge of my seat. Hopefully MWC will bring some really exciting goodies! Until then, we must wait. Was there anything at CES that you absolutely must have? What were you hoping to see that you didn't?
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