The keynotes have passed, the press conferences have wrapped up, and the show
floor has closed its doors on
CES
2009. As an estimated 130,000 people start to head home it's time we look
back on our pick for the top 10 stories that made the 2009 show memorable, for
the right and wrong reasons.
Las Vegas is all about glitz and showmanship and, once that wears out, all
that's left will be the cold hard light of day. Overall CES got by, but it
neither prospered nor showed revolutionary advances. This made picking the list
and awarding just 10 places particularly tricky.
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The Consumer Electronics Association, by contrast, gave out more than 300
awards this year, out of about 1,000 applicants. That gives an awards strike
rate that would have the average betting shop customer fighting to put money on,
and not a few chief executives or marketing directors it seems.
So here it is, our take of the highs and lows of CES 2009.
The Best ...
1. Palm
Iain
Thomson: We knew beforehand that the Palm press conference was going to be
important. The company has been dying by degrees for years now and this really
was their last chance to try and get back the hearts and minds of users.
Well, they didn't disappoint. The
Palm
Pre is one of the most exciting bits of kit I've seen in years, and my
immediate reaction was I WANT ONE NOW. The Pre has a few faults to be sure -
it's only for the US market (big mistake), it's short on memory and doesn't have
removable storage - but the operating system is fantastic and I'm actually
tempted to buy one for the first time in years.
Whether the Pre will mend Palm's fortunes is still in doubt; the company has
a long way to go yet. But the Pre gives me hope that the company that
kick-started the handheld PC market might actually survive in it.
Shaun Nichols: Everyone likes to describe their latest smartphone as
an 'iPhone killer', but few ever come close to matching the style and experience
Apple delivers.
Palm may just have done it this time. Though there are still a lot of
questions surrounding the Pre, most notably price and availability, we may be
looking at the next big thing in smartphones.
Windows Mobile could be the big loser here. The Microsoft OS now faces the
prospect of having three other big systems to compete with between the
BlackBerry, Palm and iPhone operating systems, not to mention Google's Android.
Do you agree?
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