Ramblings of an old Doc

 

OK, so yesterday you started getting the news about the strong pushes at CES 2012.

“Laptops: The Empire Strikes Back”

Last year CES belonged to the Pads. This year the big push is to sleek, super thin and fast performers. And you’ll be happy to hear that what used to cost up there in the stratosphere will now be in the less than $1,000 range. Vizio’s the newest of the players. I talked about that yesterday.

(image credit: The Verge)

Sony is the lagger with a prototype that’s behind glass and which doesn’t look too different from the the Vaio Z line with W8 and a tablet that slides over a keyboard.

Intel has announced over 75 Ultrabook designs for 2012 – 50% of them 14 and 15 inchers (we’ll see), and that’s gotta tell you something as well as partnering with Nuance (Dragonspeak) for voice recognition. Also, there’ll be a Kinect like gesture control.

Catch the article on Intel NFC and vid on Neowin.net (http://www.neowin.net/news/intel-demos-nfc-on-the-ultrabook-video) so now you won't have to sit there and laboriously type in all the billing info:

Should be a very interesting year for laptops.

 

“3D” T.V.:

First of all, it isn’t 3D.

It’s manipulation, and if you move around, the effect changes. The good news? You won’t need glasses. The bad news? There’s no real programming for it, and what of it there is doesn’t really “make your day” as nothing is really added to the program you’re watching by the 3D effect. Toshiba has a “9 Zone” one, but so what? Nine zones of “meh” are still “meh”. The Vizios are sleek and up to 47” and up to $900, but the cost/gain here doesn’t make it worth it.

My best advice here is to wait.


Comments
on Jan 10, 2012

Really like the sleek/minimal look of the first laptop. I too agree with 3D not worth the money, old technology (was around in the 80's) tried to revive it and yeah it fails. The NFC payment method is nice I think it will work out over time.

on Jan 10, 2012

I just bought a new laptop (slim netbook), for the silly amount of 200usd. These new form factors better have something more than poor 3d and a cc swipe for me to be interested in paying ten-fold.

on Jan 10, 2012

True 3D won't happen until they can perfect holographic technologies which is a long way off. Lasers are used now but the cost is prohibitive and the average person looking for 3D entertainment will either wait or mortgage everything right down to the pet cat/dog, whatever.

on Jan 10, 2012

Heavenfall
I just bought a new laptop (slim netbook), for the silly amount of 200usd. These new form factors better have something more than poor 3d and a cc swipe for me to be interested in paying ten-fold.

Not ten fold, and the form factors are full laptops... wide range of SSD's, i7's, i5's etc. No 3D on the notebooks... that's a TV/desktop thing as I understood it.

on Jan 10, 2012

Some of the laptops coming out of CES this year are just amazing!

on Jan 10, 2012

I agree, I read about LG releasing an 84" Ultra Definition (4 x 1920x1080) resolution which is incredible. Although kind of pointless since there isn't any media that supports this resolution as of yet. I think given time things will excel even further.

on Jan 11, 2012

From what I know, ultrabooks are modeled after the MacBook Air.  On the bright side, many ultrabooks will boot using SSDs instead of hard drives, as hard drives won't fit in slim ultrabooks.   But it's still no sale for me, being the desktop enthusiast that I am.  Working inside an ultrabook would be a nightmare!  It's like, a machine smashed down all it's components into a flat pancake.  They're not upgrade friendly, that's for sure.  But to each his/her own.  They look stylish though, and I'd rather see utlrabooks succeed over tablets.

It's too bad they're not showcasing desktops anymore.  I guess only a small niche market still cares about them.