Just about a week ago, I hopped on a plane to Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show; More colloquially known as CES.  As the name may imply, CES is all about the gadgets that we use on a daily basis.  Whether that’s your TV or stereo, or more recently your laptop, smartphone or tablet.  In this post, I’m going to briefly cover some of the things that I saw, while walking the show floor.  I’ll also be posting a few articles to cover some of the topics in more detail.

Let’s get started…

Tablets Galore

Last year, at CES 2010, the big talk was “tablets”.  With this new-fangled, open, operating system — Android — there is finally an OS that can easily be ported to the tablet form factor.  Unfortunately, that’s all it was…just talk.  Apple beat everyone to the punch by releasing the iPad in April.  Several months later, Samsung released the first real Android player; the Galaxy Tab.

CES 2011 started off the same way as 2010; Talk, talk, talk.  Only this time, mobile and PC manufacturers, in conjunction with the carriers, have delivered.  Motorola, Samsung, ASUS, Vizio, RIM (BlackBerry) and many others have all thrown their hats into the ring. (more on this in another post)

The Next Generation of Smartphones

Many handset manufacturers took the opportunity to show off their latest wares.  Screens are getting bigger and brighter, more and more devices are coming with front-facing cameras, and most are packed with some sort of 4G technology.  The common thread with all of these devices…drumroll please…Android.  Verizon alone announced four LTE 4G devices.  All with 4.3″ screen, LTE 4G and front-facing cameras.  Only one of these Verizon phones stands above the rest;  The Motorola DROID Bionic.  What makes the DROID Bionic better than the rest?  Two words; Dual-Core.  THIS is the future of smartphones.  The DROID Bionic wasn’t the only dual-core device. There are more on the horizon. (more on this in another post)

TVs, TVs, and additional Televisions

TVs are getting thinner and thinner, but somehow manufacturers have managed to pack more and more features into the case.  Luckily bits and bytes don’t take up much physical space and most of these new features are software related.  Connected TVs are all the rage these days.  Apps, streaming video, video calling, it’s all there.  3D was also pretty popular at CES.  Still, nothing is quite as good as watching a 3D movie in the theater.  It’ll get there eventually.  I didn’t spend much time looking at TVs, as I was focusing my efforts on mobile.

All in all, there was plenty to see at CES 2011.  Mobile and Tablets were everywhere.  I’d be willing to bet that they will eventually take over the entire South hall or push car audio out of the North hall.  Perhaps there’s a need for “Mobile CES” or “MES”.

Keep an eye on the blog, as I dive deeper into some of the topics above.