As we noted in our list of hot products at the 2010 CES, this year’s expo was not a cup that overfloweth with wicked sweet products. In fact, some of the biggest names in tech left us feeling pretty blasé—and you know it’s bad when you even consider using the word “blasé.” Now, this isn’t to say that the companies are bad–they’re not. It’s just that we’d rather they flog something, well…not boring.
So, just who or what bought a ticket to ride on SS Snoozefest this year? Let’s take a look.
3D anything
From Tokyo to Beijing, few vendors have resisted the urge to pop a straw into the 3D Kool-Aid. Never mind the fact that it doesn’t work for everyone, carries a heavy premium and forces you to sort your friends into “haves” and “have nots:” most importantly, it makes the picture look like dookie.
We don’t know about you, but we’re quite happy with our Big McHugelarge 4353450983245902345:1 LCDs, and won’t suffer Mexico City smog on our picture lightly. Jog on, 3D.
Left: A beautiful, vibrant flower / Right: RUINED BY SHITTY 3D.
NVIDIA
Many journalists from across the globe made time for NVIDIA’s CES events hoping, in part, to learn about the next-gen GeForce, codenamed GF100; they were treated to 3D Eyefinity, an Audi/NVIDIA love-in and the (admittedly sweet) Barry Bonds of SoCs instead.
While NVIDIA’s booth had GF100-powered systems, and select parties were given time to fondle Fermi under a 30-day NDA, the buying public knows nothing more about the card than it did before. You’d figure a GPU finalized for mass production would get jerked to high heaven in the light of the world stage, but alas.
#37 on the list of improbable things we saw before Fermi.
Intel
In case you haven’t heard, Intel’s new Core i3 and Core i5 processors are pretty much dual core Nehalems with a fresh coat of paint and a bottle of NOS. In fact, clock for clock, they’re not much faster than the Lynnfields before them. Insult to injury, the bitchin’ sweet 32nm architecture used to make them won’t cost a penny less than $999 if you want more than two cores in 2010.
That’s right: The only enthusiast chip Intel plans to launch on the new process is the hexa core Core i7 980X, and it’s ten Benjamins large.
Two is the new four, kids.
AMD
There was an AMD Vision booth. We did a barrel roll in HAWX. Oh boy.
ASUS
At last year’s CES we were treated to an exquisite line of concept notebook designs known as Fold. Through the confluence of collapsible chassis elements, composite materials and process advancements (such as OLED, SSDs and 32nm CPUs), ASUS aspired to create notebooks reminiscent of an empty three-ring binder. In other words, slimmer’n’hell and totally portable.
This year we got a laptop with Will Smith ears; the 1471st EeePC; some bamboo plastic; and a may-never-actually-get-introduced-but-we-wanted-to-generate-some-exuberant-coverage-from-the-more-gullible-press platform which puts cloud computing on a bracelet or something. There may have been an ASUS Rampage Formula Maximus P7T WS Deluxe MCCCXXXVII GENE V2 motherboard tossed in for good measure, but we didn’t look.
Final thoughts
Between the industry’s obsession with e-readers and 3D TV, and the absolute dearth of compelling desktop parts coming from AMD, NVIDIA and Intel, this year’s CES was a pretty vanilla affair.
As Peter Gill put it, “If we’re talking sports, this year was a rebuilding year for our teams. Next year we hope will be better for enthusiasts.” And he could not be more right. With new CPU architectures from AMD (Bulldozer) and Intel (Sandy Bridge), 22nm NAND cells, new chipsets, Intel Light Peak, and the proliferation of USB 3.0, we might not even have to do a little light trolling next year (or, you know, maybe not).
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