I was doing great after CES until Sunday night when I developed a cough after the Supercross event. Well, after a few days in bed I still feel like crap, but it is thing I do to bring you breaking information. Just feel my pain!!
CES 2008
I've been attending the CES show for just over 20 years now and the one thing that struck me about this year (and several others in attendance) was that there was nothing that earth shattering at this year's show. I mean yeah, Panasonic showed off a plasma screen larger than a truck, but big deal it is not really usable.
On the whole I've gotten a lot better at looking at products and not getting too excited until I get the answer to the ever important question. When will it ship? as in years past the answers varied, but the vast majority started with one of the following.
"We are shooting for..."
"Should be around..."
"Spring time delivery..."
All meaning of course....not now.
With that understanding in mind I usually don't even bother with stuff that isn't shipping yet, but even looking at those products, nothing exciting really stood out. Heck, even the booth babes were lacking this year, and I mean if you don't have any exciting product, the least you should do is have good looking women to talk to, right?
Anyway, of the categories that matter to us the motorcycle riders I can say this.
Navigation -
Garmin is still king, both in product design and how the mapping interface works. If you want to look for an alternative you can find one as I think I saw about 10 new companies that were showing Nav systems. The only real motorcycle specific units were Tom-Tom and Garmin.
Digital Media Players -
Holy Crap! There are a ton of these, in all sizes and shapes. In you are not on the iWagon I would suggest looking at Creative or SanDisc as both have player options that are small and well suited for motorcycle use.
Best Of Show
I scoured the halls looking for a products that would stand out above all others and believe it or not one stood out far above all the rest. So much so that I will write another entry just to explain.
The product? It is a little active tracking device called the ZoomBak. And it is unequivocally the best product shown at CES for the motorcyclist.
No comments:
Post a Comment