CES: Top 10 best and worst of CES

CES carries on for the weekend, but a large part of the business of the show has been concluded, if the hordes of attendees flocking to Las Vegas airport are anything to go by.

As is the tradition at CES, Shaun and I met at our favourite airport bar for a pint to resolve the final issue of the Top 10 list; a look at what had really made an impression, good and bad.

It's usually easy to fill one side of the list than the other, depending on whether it was a good or bad show, and it bodes well that we struggled to fill the list of things we liked the least, with one or two notable exceptions.

It's been a very good show in comparison to recent years. Attendance is up, both for exhibitors and buyers, and there is a more confident air than we've seen in the past two years. Let's hope that this is a sign of recovery for the industry as a whole.

THE BEST

Honourable Mention: Return of the booth bunny
Shaun Nichols: Not to sound like some sort of chauvinist here, but the return of the 'booth bunny' is actually a very good thing.

Also known as 'booth babes', the booth bunny is a pretty girl, usually an aspiring model or actress, who gets paid to stand in front of a company's booth and entice conventioneers to come into the booth and learn more.

Back in the boom days of the late 1990s, booth bunnies were far more common, to the point where some wondered whether companies weren't going a bit too far with the whole thing. Since the economy went bad and companies cut back on expenses, and CES in general, they nearly disappeared.

This year, however, there were more booth bunnies on the show floor and that is a good thing. It's a sign that business is starting to pick up again and companies have a bit more money to budget for CES.

Iain Thomson: When Shaun suggested this I was shocked and a little repulsed, but he makes a good case, even if I hate the term 'booth bunny' with a passion.

He's certainly right that there are a lot more attractive exhibition stand staff this year, and some of the costumes being worn were in no way designed for practicality. One poor lass had a company logo painted across her décolletage and was plainly freezing in a pair of short shorts and a frilly bustier.

The fact is that, at a conference like CES, which is about 80 per cent male, attractive women are hired to lure passers by onto the stand. It works because people, for all our rationality, are carnal creatures who like to be around attractive folks. It isn't just men either; in shows where women are in the majority I've seen plenty of 'booth beefcake'.

So yes, Shaun, it is a good thing that companies are spending on booth staff again, but I just wish they'd spend it in other ways than hiring someone to appeal to lower brain functions.

5. RIM BlackBerry PlayBook hands on
Shaun Nichols: I was on hand for the original unveiling of the BlackBerry PlayBook last year and I came away impressed. One lingering question has followed the device, however. When will we be able to get our hands on it?

At CES 2011, the company answered that question. RIM finally allowed people to see the PlayBook up close.

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the result. RIM has figured out that if it wants to stay relevant in the smartphone market it needs to make the BlackBerry platform attractive as a consumer option as well as an enterprise device. The PlayBook can appeal as a personal and business tablet.

Iain Thomson: Shaun has it right. It's been very frustrating to have RIM announce the device and then stop anyone trying it out.

RIM did have one on display at AdobeMAX this year, but it was encased in perspex, a move that had me considering the viability of a hacksaw to get my hands on it. But at CES, everyone got to try it out and I for one am tremendously impressed.

Unlike some tablets, the PlayBook is meant to be carried, with a form factor you can slip into a jacket pocket or small purse. It can also output to a television via HDMI with great quality.

It's the kind of device that I suspect businesses are going to love: powerful enough for presentations yet properly portable and, with its innovative gesture control, a dream to use.

I suspect it's also going to generate a lot of money for RIM, and not in the way it thinks. I've checked, and it's possible to fit the PlayBook in the back pocket of a pair of jeans. If you can do that, a lot of devices are going to get sat on and replaced.

4. Asus
Iain Thomson: It's been a decade since I got my first Asus laptop and the build quality was so poor I swore I'd never own another one. This year's show is causing a rethink of that position.

Asus has been showing off some really nice kit this year, and it looks like the company has found its 'Jonathan Ive' from a design standpoint.

One laptop in particular, a two-screen model with a virtual keyboard, had us really impressed. It's the kind of premium laptop that has geeks salivating and I only hope that Asus gets around to releasing it in the US soon.

Asus also did very well in Greenpeace's latest report into the environmental friendliness of consumer electronics, showing that you don't have to destroy the world in order to be a success.

Shaun Nichols: It's fitting that Asus comes in at number four on our list, as it released many new tablet models at this year's show.

The company was among the first to show off a tablet system at last year's CES, and this time round it kept that momentum going with some very good looking hardware. Let's not forget that the very first modern tablet using Windows was an Asus machine.

Being one of the early tablet builders appears to have given Asus a leg up in the market and, with demand for tablets only expected to grow in the coming years, it might just be able to carve out a very nice piece of the pie.

3. Cisco Videoscape
Shaun Nichols: Cisco made a name for itself (and a sizeable amount of cash for its shareholders) by providing the backbone hardware for enterprise networks. Now the company wants to do the same for home video.

The Videoscape platform looks to serve not only as a tool to allow end users to view additional content on their television screens, but as a platform for developers and service providers.

The company that is likely to have made the hardware your internet provider uses may soon be making the hardware your television provider runs on.

Iain Thomson: Cisco chief executive John Chambers was looking very cheerful whenever we saw him at CES, and I suspect it's because he's figured out where he's going to take Cisco in the future.

For years Cisco has provided the backbone for corporate networks and the basic hardware for much of the world's internet traffic. Lest we forget, the company is also heavily involved in providing equipment to censor the internet, as a key partner in China's Great Firewall

But business networks and aiding repressive governments only gets you so far, and the consumer market has largely eluded Cisco.

Sure it makes consumer products, but it's not very good at marketing them and buyers aren't too keen. Now Cisco can get into the home market in a way that it's comfortable with, by selling to the suppliers rather than direct to the customers.

2. Android 3.0
Iain Thomson: Android 3.0, or Honeycomb, generated a lot of buzz at CES when Motorola got permission to show it off.

We didn't get to see as much of it as we'd like. Too much of the demonstration was limited to pre-prepared movies about the operating system, with comparatively little chance to look into the guts.

The word on the street is that all manufacturers will have it within 60 days, and Motorola got the scoop because it had been an early Android adopter.

Nevertheless, Android 3.0 looks very good indeed, and I suspect Apple and Microsoft executives are looking at it right now and getting nervous.

Android is coming on in leaps and bounds with each new release, and 3.0 looks very good indeed. My only real concern is that the hardware required to run it may mean there's a lot of people with non-upgradable systems.

Shaun Nichols: Prior to the release of Android 3.0, some were warning against buying an Android tablet because the operating system was not exactly designed to be put into a tablet.

With Honeycomb, tablet vendors now have an OS specially designed for the platform. This should improve the quality and performance of Android tablets and increase the popularity of the form factor.

As Iain noted, the hardware requirements to run 3.0 can be a bit steep, but that is the case for just about every new operating system these days. The hardware will catch up quickly, particularly in a market evolving as rapidly as the tablet space.

1. Motorola
Shaun Nichols: Iain insisted on this one and I didn't put up much of an argument. Motorola absolutely stole the show at an otherwise ho-hum CES.

The company introduced two new devices that had attendees and press queuing up to get a look.

First there's the Atrix handset, which sports a dual-core processor along with a host of other features. Its laptop docking station is a work of genius, and I suspect they will sell like hot cakes.

Then there's the Xoom tablet. Running Android 3.0, the Xoom packs a serious punch. It may not be the fabled 'iPad killer' that everyone seems to want, but in the Android world it looks like Motorola has a pair of very serious threats to the competition.

Iain Thomson: I was a tad dogmatic about this I'm afraid. Part of it is that I was just blown away by the Xoom and Atrix because they're both stunningly good products. But there was also an element of guilt.

I've been writing about Motorola for over a decade and was seriously thinking that the company should be wound down and consigned to history. It's been badly managed, has produced some absolutely rubbish hardware and seemed to be going the way of the dodos.

Now it's got a tablet that'll give Apple a run for its money and a truly innovative smartphone design, and I predict great things for corporate revenues.

Motorola does have a history of doing this sort of thing. The Razr was a great handset, and sold like hot cakes. But the rest of Motorola's mobile range was, quite frankly, dogs.

The company coasted on the success of one handset and found itself in trouble a few years later. I can only hope that it builds on these products and doesn't waste any more opportunities.

THE WORST

Honourable Mention: The Consumer Electronics Association
Iain Thomson: Among its other roles, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) runs CES, and it doesn't do it particularly well.

The show is huge, but to allow the maximum floor space to be sold the CEA keeps the walkways in some of the halls ridiculously small.

South Hall is a very good example of this. The end result means that, if you're in a hurry to get somewhere, you're forced to zig-zag through stands to avoid the blocked walkways.

Every year the CEA seems to be taken completely off guard by the number of visitors, either not laying on enough staff to keep the crowds flowing smoothly or, at last year's show, overestimating visitor numbers considerably.

Don't even get me started on the pathetic press room. As a show organiser, the CEA is about as useful as a glass hammer.

Shaun Nichols: Last year we and many other journos railed at the CEA for its handling of the show and the use of space. We hoped that it would spur the organisation to improve things and make it easier for attendees to enjoy the conference and allow reporters to do their jobs. That was very naïve of us.

As with last year, media day was dreadfully mismanaged. Queues were winding round the corner of the hall a half hour before press conferences started, and the undersized rooms meant that many reporters couldn't get into conferences.

Things weren't much better for attendees. The convention centre was so packed that trying to get in or out was an ordeal that could take hours. At the monorail station, passengers had to wait outside the station just to get into the queue to buy a ticket, before even thinking about boarding the train.

Perhaps its time the CEA wised up and split the exhibition into two or more s maller, more specialised conferences.

5. NEC
Iain Thomson: CES this year saw around 100 tablets launched, the bulk of them very much the same. NEC had a particularly memorable dual-screen tablet, but it was memorable for the wrong reasons.

Pretty much everything about this tablet was wrong. The screens were low resolution and don't respond to gesture control. Instead you're stuck using the stylus to do anything precise because of the resistive touch screen.

The screens themselves are low resolution and to cap it all the device is limited to a special version of Android 2.1, which is now looking very long in the tooth, and I'm willing to bet the software isn't upgradable.

NEC seemed rather proud of its tablet but I was much less than impressed, and I suspect it will sell very poorly indeed.

Shaun Nichols: With so many tablets being unveiled at CES, it can be easy to forget one or two. But NEC's tablet stuck out.

The device looked like something that was planned a few years ago and the company never got around to until now. We'll see whether more changes are made but this was not impressive.

A lot of CES rollouts never even get to retail, and this might end up as one of them. I think NEC would be well advised to rethink this one.

4. Verizon
Shaun Nichols: Verizon did make some news at this year's CES, just not the news that many were hoping to get.

It's no secret that the company has been in talks with Apple to provide service for the iPhone. In fact, it hasn't been a secret since early this summer when the reports first began to surface.

Verizon had the chance to make headlines at CES and steal the spotlight by announcing the iPhone deal. Unfortunately, there was no hard news to be had on the subject, but plenty of rumour.

The company has scheduled a press conference in New York on Tuesday and the likelihood is that the announcement will come then.

Iain Thomson: What Verizon has done is a very smart PR move, but annoying for us hard working hacks.

Had Verizon announced the iPhone at the show it would have made headlines, but also had a lot more competition for the attention of attendees and those following the show.

By scheduling the announcement for Tuesday the company gets to hog next week's technology headlines and can wait until journalists have recovered from this week's exertions.

The news will be a small blow to AT&T, but a huge boon to US users since AT&T has had a history of poor network investment that it is now trying to rectify.

Those outside the US won't be directly affected thanks to a near global embrace of GSM-based mobiles, but Apple's wider choice of partners signals a move by the company into the mass market.

While the iPhone is an object of lust for many, its market share is small. The expected announcement, and the news that 3GS handsets are now selling for as little as $49 (£31), shows that Apple has decided to go for a mass market approach that should prove very profitable.

3. 3D TV
Iain Thomson: Last year we were repeatedly told that 2010 was the year of 3D televisions hitting the mainstream. It hasn't happened, but that hasn't stopped at least three companies telling me that 2011 will be the year it takes off, and one of them getting very annoyed when we pointed out that they'd said the same thing 12 months ago.

The fact is that 3D TV isn't particularly fun to watch for a lot of people. As many as a third of the population may not be able to view the technology properly, according to some studies, the sets themselves are expensive and the glasses used by most systems are a pain in the backside to wear, not to mention extortionately priced in most cases.

There have been some advances in the technology to be sure. Glasses-free 3D is here and it works, in a fashion. Toshiba had a laptop that uses a slotted screen cover to provide true 3D without the Joe 90 specs, provided you don't move your head too far and aren't watching a movie with another person.

There are also cinema screens that do the same thing. But 3D is still a long way from being ready for the mass market.

Shaun Nichols: I'm sure that eventually 3D TV will catch on and become an everyday technology. Most likely it will happen when prices go down and screens that don't require glasses show up.

As it is, however, 3D sets are too expensive and too impractical for the vast majority of consumers.

The big issue is the glasses. Aside from being way too expensive, they pose a logistical issue. What happens when you have three people that want to watch the set but only two pairs of glasses?

And, of course, there's the problem with losing the things. I can barely keep track of the remote. How in the world would I be able to keep one or more pairs of 3D glasses as well?

2. 4G announcements
Shaun Nichols: Iain had a lot to say on this one, so I'll keep my part short and sweet.

The WiMax and Long Term Evolution (LTE) formats have been at war for quite some time over which will become the standard to replace 3G wireless broadband. This has mistakenly led to both claiming to be '4G'.

The problem is that neither is actually called 4G, and using the term to describe them is misleading for consumers who don't understand that they're two different formats.

Carriers and handset manufacturers could have gone a long way towards clearing things up this year at CES, but none of them bothered.

Iain Thomson: OK, rant at the ready as this has been bothering me for some time. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said last year that neither LTE nor WiMax were sufficiently advanced to be called 4G.

The handset manufacturers decided that they weren't going to listen to a bunch of stuffy old engineers when they had these advertising campaigns worked out, and ignored the ruling.

This put the ITU in something of a quandary. It's the United Nations agency for mobile communications and is used to manufacturers sticking to the rules. But if it stuck with its decision, the risk was that it would lose naming rights and cause market confusion.

So it relaxed its rules to include LTE, WiMax and HSPA+ as 4G standards, and no doubt the original specification will now be called 5G.

I freely admit that I'm a pedant about this, but walking through a sea of 4G signs for the past few days has really made my teeth grind.

1. Microsoft keynote
Iain Thomson: In last year's list we were rather cutting about Steve Ballmer's opening keynote at CES. We were too hard on him then, but this one was much worse.

The first keynote of CES should set the tone for the whole show, a speech to excite or educate the listeners.

Instead we got a bunch of old news being recycled, a very dull rehash of the features of Windows Phone 7 and the news that Windows 8 will run on ARM processors, something Microsoft had announced at a press conference earlier in the day.

It was a shockingly bad performance from Ballmer and the Microsoft team, and I hope that the CEA is rethinking giving the company the top slot based on current performance.

Shaun Nichols: The Ballmer keynote was bad last year because it seemed like nothing went right. This year, however, there were no cock-ups to blame for the failure of the keynote.

I suspect that one of the main reasons Apple no longer headlines the Macworld Expo is because the company doesn't want to be forced to demonstrate new devices every year whether they're ready or not.

This year, CES came at a time where Microsoft simply didn't have a lot of new products ready to be shown.

The new Kinect features were interesting, but hardly groundbreaking. The rest of the keynote had all the excitement of a grass-growing competition. At the end the reaction among those in the press corps was "is that it?"

Ballmer might be wise to take a leaf from Steve Jobs's book. This year's keynote was definitely missing a "one more thing".