Tag Archives: CES 2013

CES 2013: The experience

I already made a separate post about what I saw at CES. I also wanted to write about my experience. First, the food was delicious. We had lunch at the Burger Bar, and I had a buffalo burger. I don’t eat buffalo very often, and it was definitely tasty. Now there was a down side. Either that buffalo made me very sick, or something earlier did, but I was fine before I ate the buffalo.

I started to have an upset stomach at CES. At one point I was looking at convertible laptops/tablets when I completely lost my balance. I grabbed on to my friend for balance, apologized, and waited to regain my balance. When I did, I started to walk toward my group to tell them I was going back to the hotel. It should have been a 30 second walk. I few seconds later I started losing my balance again, so I stopped and leaned against a display. Eventually I reached my friends, told them I was going to go back to the hotel, and asked them where the restroom was.

I started to make way to the restroom as I began to lose my balance again. I walked with my hand against the wall to keep my sense of direction. Then my vision began to get blurry, and a white spot appeared slightly to the right of center. It spread, and after a few seconds, I couldn’t see at all. I leaned against the wall for a minute as my vision came back. I began to wonder if the convention staff would kick me out thinking I was drunk. Why wasn’t I worried about my vision? I don’t know. Anyways, eventually I made it to the bathroom, and I won’t go into any more details. However, the two days in Vegas were pretty bad.

Let’s go back to food though. I was feeling a little better that night, so I still went out with the group. We ate at the Bally’s Steakhouse. They brought everyone shots to start before even taking orders. The food itself was delicious. I had lamb chops, broccoli, macaroni and cheese, and a salad. Like the buffalo, I don’t eat lamb very often, so it was delicious.

That was Thursday. It’s Sunday now, and I’m still not feeling 100%. Luckily I haven’t had the vision problems again, which was the part I was most worried about.

CES 2013: The show

The Consumer Electronics Show 2013 was last week, and it was my second year attending. Like last year, I swear the most common products weren’t very innovative or new at all. Every corner of the show seemed filled with speakers, headphones, iPhone and iPad cases, and iPhone and iPad docks.

Of course, there were some other things too. First, thanks to Windows 8 there were a variety of new form factors of laptops/tablets. These included slide out laptops/tablets, laptops that fold over backwards, and laptops with screens that swivel within their frame. To be honest, they felt similar, and none of them felt 100% right. I suspect we’ll see some more iterations on these until something catches on.

I also saw the ability to turn many devices into things that were a bit superfluous. I want my devices to do their jobs. While adding additional functionality seems like a benefit, if I already have another device that does that job better, then I don’t need the new one.

TVs were big this year too of course. A variety of companies had 4K TVs. You can definitely tell the difference between 1080p and 4K, but it’s no where near worth the price yet in my opinion. Of course, I just got an HD TV for the first time, so obviously I don’t care about that very much. Sony had a TV on display that used glasses to show two separate images to different people. This allowed people to play a two player PS3 game on one TV with each player seeing a full screen. That seemed cool (but not worth wearing glasses). Sony also showed off their Vitas. It’s a nice little device, but the controls just don’t feel good to me.

The only thing this year that really impressed me (although not new this year) were OLED TVs. They have such a vibrant, clear picture. I’d rather have a 1080p OLED TV than a 4K non-OLED TV. However, some companies were showing 4K OLED TVs. Now that’s cool.