25 Must-Sees At CES 2008

Hard disk drives aren't going to disappear anytime soon. But with some system builders already reporting HDD availability issues and with the price of solid-state drives dropping, it's clear that NAND flash and SDRAM-based data storage devices are the wave of the future.

We expect that SSDs from companies like Toshiba, Intel, SanDisk, SMART and Samsung will get a lot of attention at CES. Toshiba, for example, has a 128GB multi-level cell NAND drive set to hit shelves in March.

Intel is going to be showing off the Z-P140 PATA SSD it unveiled in December. Pictured at left, the Z-P140 for ultra-mobile devices comes in 2GB and 4GB flavors, with extensions to 8GB and 16GB and it weighs less than a penny.

Enthusiastic system builders impress the masses with explosions. But they impress each other with cool-and-quiet rigs (and, ok, explosions). Liquid cooling was the big breakthrough and we can't wait to see what performance-PC manufacturers like HP's Voodoo PC have coiled up for cool in 2008.

Pictured left is the factory-sealed liquid cooling unit for the HP Blackbird 002 PC, jointly developed with thermal management specialist Asetek. Ooh, it sends chills down our spine.

Companies like BodyGuardz (Web site pictured) make hay in the post-holiday period, when gift recipients are looking to accessorize their new smartphones, media players and notebooks. Small is the new big when it comes to display screens, and screen protectors for the aforementioned devices may be the coolest non-electronic products on display at the Consumer Electronic Show.

BodyGuardz, for example, offers a screen protector for the Apple iPhone "made from the same material that is used to protect the front of automobiles from stones and other abrasive elements." Which means that even if you hack your iPhone, at least you won't be able to scratch it with another brick.

This sub-$100 mobile karaoke unit from iLive took home a pre-CES Innovations Award in New York a few weeks ago. The iJ618B Karaoke Machine has an onboard iPod play-and-charge dock, dual microphone jacks, automatic voice reduction and stereo sound, as video output for broadcast on different screen sizes for sing-along fun. Or rather, "fun." Lyrics can be played on CD+Graphics or DVD. The iJ618B is already available at Best Buy and will be demoed at iLive's booth at CES. Just follow the sound of "Islands in the Stream" being butchered. Or go directly to Booth #10436.

Speaking Sunday Jan. 6, 6:30 pm, The Venetian, Palazzo Ballroom

Ok, so seeing Gates is not as fun as the many celebrity sightings at the Big Show (more about that later). But how can you resist seeing the richest man in the world tell you how Microsoft plans to stop Google from taking over the world? This marks the 12th time Gates has kicked off the show with his Sunday night keynote (In Microsoft's better days it was followed by a blowout party).

Gates is still worth catching just to get a read on how much Microsoft matters these days. And given that Gates steps aside from his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft effective July 2008 (he will remain chairman), you have to wonder if this will be his last CES keynote. Catch him while you can.

Samsung keeps its title as the king of all things digital with a new wave of ultra cool products coming at CES from its Information Technology Division. Look for a new version of the company's Q1 Ultra Premium, a breakthrough in the ultra mobile PC market packing more PC functionality into an under-2-lbs. package than any and all comers.

The new Q1 Ultra provides 7.5 hours of battery life versus 4.5 on the old line. If that isn't enough, the company has dramatically improved usability by providing a bigger, easier to use keyboard. File this one under good things come in small packages. The new Q1 Ultra Premium model (see photo) is priced starting at $1,399 and is available immediately.

Check out Samsung's nifty new SyncMaster 220TN which is being billed as "the world's first VoIP-enabled network monitor." The display features built-in camera, microphone and speaker, all in the name of making Web conferencing a more compelling experience for everyone. The new 220TN with a 22-inch wide screen and 2.0M pixel Webcam has a MSRP of $1,249 and is available immediately.

The Official Press Event, Saturday, June 5, 4 pm

Before the official opening of the show, CES hosts an exclusive look at some of the hottest new products. It's always a raucous event filled with everything from the biggest widescreen LCDs to cutting edge digital home software. And, oh yeah, drinks and food for the hordes of press attendees. Forget about the Boys on The Bus covering the Presidential Election. This is unrivaled pack journalism.

This year's showcase includes SMB networking stalwart Netgear, chip maverick AMD (still smarting from a glitch that has delayed its quad core Opteron and Phenom chips) and what may turn out to be one of the coolest products at the show for supernerds still in school: an LCD digital microscope from Celestron with an integrated 3.5 inch LCD screen.

Are you sick of schlocky, low quality video and audio? Two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas, one of the great movies stars of our time, apparently is and he's doing something about it. Douglas is giving XStream HD his high five on Tuesday Jan. 8 at the Venetian, Casanova 503. So what is XStream HD? The company boasts that it has flat out "unprecedented quality" HD content delivery with full 1080p HD video and 7.1 channels of "lossless audio" to the home.

XStream HD says it is declaring all out war on what it calls "conventional entertainment distribution" from the likes of DirectTV, Amazon, TiVo, Apple and NetFlix. Those are pretty big targets. Check it out to see what all the fuss is about or better yet, come to see Douglas.

SanDisk is making a big bet that it can break the bank on the USB flash drive market by marrying for the first time flash drive backup with online backup. The Cruzer Titanium Plus, which will be on display at Booth #30768, South Hall 3, in the Las Vegas Convention Center, provides automatic online backup for every file copied to the drive. What that means is now if you forget to pack that USB flash drive or even worse lose it, you can still get to your data from the online backup site.

The Cruzer, which is slated to be available in March at MSRP of $59.99, has capacity of four gigabytes (GB) and comes with six months of free online backup. After six months, online backup costs $29.99 a year. Hats off to SanDisk for thinking out of the box and bringing the physical USB flash drive and the online worlds together. And heh, who came up with that super cool name (Cruzer Titanium Plus). It sounds like something a Super Hero would use.

Any and all veteran CES goers know the biggest and baddest party at the show is the annual Monster Cable Concert and awards. How do you top past Monster Concerts that featured Stevie Wonder and George Benson and Al Jarreau? How about by getting the Queen of Hip Hop and six-time Grammy winner Mary J. Blige.

If Blige isn't enough, the awards ceremony is worth the price of admission thanks to Monster Cable Product CEO Noel Lee, the Big Monster, known for riding around the show floor on his Segway. Any industry CEO that wants to learn how to honor solution providers, resellers, distributors should check out Lee's awards act.

If you're Sharp and you broke the record for the biggest and baddest LCD TV by showing off a 108 inch model at last year's CES what do you do for an encore? Well how about getting the biggest record breaker of them all, Big Papi David Ortiz, to make an appearance.

We don't have the inside scoop on what Sharp is going to be blowing out at CES, but we do know Ortiz is going to make an appearance for the company on Tuesday January 8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center Central Hall, Booth 11024. If Big Papi says Sharp LCD TVs beat all comers when it comes to watching him swat those game winning homers, then it's good enough for us. Go Big Papi Go!

Are you sick and tired of trying to piece together some kind of half baked, bric a brac solution to get your photos, music, movies, videos, etc... from your PC to run on your HDTV? Well, then the new HP MediaSmart Receiver is for you. It's the first MediaSmart receiver from HP that has brought its trademark outstanding engineering and design skills (the product features HP's "Zen" imprint pattern with a glossy, black finish) to a product category in dire need of it.

One big differentiator: the new MediaSmart Receiver works with both Windows XP and Vista. Many competitive products work just with Vista (Great job HP. XP Rules!). HP, which has not yet priced the product slated to be shipped in the spring, will be showing off the new MediaSmart Receiver at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Upper South Hall, Booth number 31112.

Any solution provider worth his salt knows that storage remains one of the hottest markets. HP is pushing hard and fast to offer small businesses and consumers more cost effective options with the new HP Media Vault mv2100 and mv5100 series.

The Linux-based offerings are designed to give consumers or small businesses continuous backup that can be accessed from a home network or remotely. HP says it is aiming to break open a whole new storage category with the offerings called "NAS Plus." Plus indeed.

The HP Media Vault Pro mv5100 series, aimed at the small business market, comes in 1 TB and 1.5 TB versions, while the HP Media Vault mv 2100 Series will be with up to 500 GB of storage capacity. File this one under: eat dust Dell.

If you needed yet more evidence that Linux is a runaway train, don't forget to check out the latest from Good OS, which will be at CES launching its gOS 2.0 Rocket platform. Good OS got the party started with the launch two months ago of its gOS product with Google and Web applications bundled on a $199 Walmart PC. That's right $199. CES marks the debut of what Good OS is calling gOS Rocket.

The new platform includes Google gears, online synchronization technology that allows offline use of Web applications, gBooth, a browser based Web cam, and an online storage drive powered by Box.net. It's all very Web 2.0. That chain saw you hear in the background is the Windows PC tax (the price of Microsoft Vista and Office bundled on a white box system) being slashed to ribbons. OS Rocket will debut Monday, January 7 at 11:30 a.m. at a press preview during the Lunch@Piero's event. The OS will be available as a free download starting Jan. 7 at thinkgos.com.

Gamers just can't get enough power, performance or functionality from their PCs, notebooks or gaming platforms. Just to prove enough is never enough, Sony is using CES to roll out Skype for its PlayStation Portable platform. No longer do you have to use your cell phone to trash talk that fellow gamer across the country or halfway around the world. Now you can use your PSP system itself. Take that, Xbox!

The Skype deal is certainly a boost for PSP gamers, but you have to wonder if it will have any material effect on eBay which admitted last October that it overpaid for Skype (eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype in October 2005) and took a $900 million writedown. That's one costly phone call.

ViewSonic has always used CES to push the technology envelope on its display products. This year is no exception. The display giant is set to up the ante on the color performance front with its VP Series of LCD displays, the bread and butter line for solution providers. Traditional LCDs right now only reproduce about 70 to 80 percent of the NTSC color gamut.

Look for all that change the new VP Series line of LCD displays, which will now feature 110 percent of the NTSC color gamut. If that isn't enough, ViewSonic is set to introduce a number of new LED backlit displays that can produce 118 percent of the NTSC color gamut.

You've gotta love Supermicro. These guys wrote the book on how to beat the big boys to the punch with flat out better bang for the buck. There's a reason system builders like Supermicro thrive: it's because they move faster than the big boys with the latest cutting edge technology and do it at unbelievable prices.

At CES, Supermicro will be showing off the new SuperWorkstation 7045A-C3, a whisper quiet system that comes with an acoustic optimized fan (It's so quiet you don't even realize it's on). This baby is all about energy efficient cost savings. It comes with DDR2 memory that consumes 20 percent less energy. Combine that with an energy-optimized motherboard and the energy efficient Intel 5100 San Clemente chip set and you have a system that costs less to run than an energy efficient lightbulb. If you're interested in cost savings and great performance this is the box for you.

Any company that can make USB Flash Drives sexy is okay with us. Take a look at the innovative design of both the Voyager and Survivor Series. These are products that you figure could withstand a nuclear blast or a trip to the Moon.

The Flash Voyager comes with an all rubber design, while the Flash Survivor has an aluminum-encased waterproof design. Corsair says the 32 GB drives hold over 16 full-length high-definition movies, or an entire season of your favorite show (Is 30 Rock available on iTunes?).

The Flash Voyager 32 GB has an MSRP of $229.99, while the Flash Survivor 32 GB has an MSRP of $249.99. They'll both be on display in the Corsair Suite at the Wynn Hotel and at Showstoppers CES 2008.

Dell's six-month old Inspiron 1520 product got a facelift and some liposuction with the launch of the Inspiron 1525. The 15.4-inch 1525 model is 25 percent smaller and about half a pound lighter than its predecessor. The revamped notebook is available in four customized patters in addition to eight colors.

The notebook has Dell's MediaDirect technology, which gives users one-touch access to digital media and select Microsoft Office software and wireless functionality including Bluetooth. Users can also add built-in 2.0 megapixel webcams, microphones and headphones and a remote control.

Pricing for the Inspiron 1525 starts at $499.

Dell will be debuting its latest high-end display featuring four-millimeter ultra-clear tempered glass, a floating screen on a metal tripod and audio speakers wired into the frame along with a 2.0 megapixel webcam with microphone.

The display features 1680 x 1059 native resolution, Dell's TrueColor technology with 98 percent color gamut, 2 ms typical response time (gray to gray) and a 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The Dell Crystal also has HD connectivity with DVI/NDMI with HDCP, sub-woofer out capabilities and USB connectivity.

The Dell Crystal is priced at $1,199.

Asustek Computer is set to unveil the next generation of its super-cool Asus Eee PC, an ultra-mobile PC that weighs about 2 lbs. The company is hosting an event on WiMAX broadband wireless technology with Sprint and Intel at which it plans preview the device. While the company hasn't offered much in the way of detail, some

Internet reports say that, in addition to the WiMAX support, the new version will have a 9-inch display, up from the 7-inch screen included with the current Eee PC 4G (seen here). Current versions sell for about $400. The event, dubbed "WiMAX Today, WiMAX Tomorrow" is scheduled for Monday, January 7 at 2pm in the Grand Ball Room of the Riviera Casino and Hotel.

Built to be light and portable, Lenovo's IdeaPad U110 weighs just 2.3 points and is 0.7 inches deep. It features an 11-inch widescreen display and a red aluminum alloy top cover. It adds extended battery life and optional solid state flash drives. Select configuration also include an "air-bag like" Active Protection System to protect the hard drive during a fall. Pricing was not disclosed.

One-third the size of an average tower PC, the HP Pavilion Slimline s3330f PC is targeted at the dedicated digital video viewer. It plays both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high-definition DVDs and has a TV tuner that allows users to record television programs. It also has an HDMI port to connect to high-definition television sets. The HP Pavilion Slimline s3330f PC starts at $949.

With its 12.1-inch touch-screen display that rotates 180 degrees and can be folded flat, the HP Pavilion tx2000 Series Entertainment Notebook PC is optimized for handwriting capture. It also comes with HP QuickPlay entertainment software, a webcam and a microphone to enable video chatting. The HP Pavilion tx2000 series Notebook PC starts at $1,299.