CES Pre-Show Sneak Peek

Name: CES Pre-Show Sneak Peek
Brand: CES

by Marco Chiappetta — Saturday, January 10, 2009, 11:02 PM EDT

CES Pre-Show Sneak Peek

We've got a couple of editors out in Las Vegas currently at the whirlwind that is the Consumer Electronics Show (myself included), and saw some cool stuff at an event this evening that we thought many of you would like to check out. There are a few big announcements coming over the next couple of days that we'll be talking about in due time, and the show technically doesn't start until tomorrow, but that didn't stop some major players from showcasing their wares a bit early...

NVIDIA and Viewsonic

NVIDIA was showing off a few things, including its Ion platform, which couples an NVIDIA chipset and IGP to Intel's Atom processor. The tiny Ion reference platform was on display running an HD video clip of the Dark Knight with perfect playback quality. Although this platform doesn't have Intel's blessing at the moment, we hope it somehow takes off--Ion would make for a killer media extender. NVIDIA was also showing off their GeForce 3D Vision stereoscopic shutter glasses, as was Viewsonic, which has some new 120Hz capable LCD displays on tap that work with the glasses. Check back here in the morning for a more on GeForce 3D Vision.

RAMBUS

A quick stop by the RAMBUS display revealed a few interesting PCBs. Two of the images above are of the first couple of revisions of Sony's Playstation 3 motherboard, which utilize RAMBUS memory technology. The other image is of a new TI projector that also features some RAMBUS tech.

HTC and OQO

At the HTC and OQO displays, we spotted a couple of very cool gadgets. First we have HTC's hot new S743 smartphone. The Windows Mobile 6.1-based S743 features a 528MHz Qualcomm processor, 256MB ROM, 256MB RAM, an SDHC microSD expansion slot, in addition to an excellent 4-row QWERTY keyboard and 2.4" TFT screen, among many other features. This phone is being sold unlocked, so it will work with multiple carriers; it features built-in WiFi as well.

OQO had a new Intel Atom-based Model 2+ handheld PC on display. The Model 2+ will be available in two models, one with a 1.33GHz Atom Z520 processor, 60GB drive, and 1GB of RAM for $999, and another with a 1.86GHz Atom Z540 processor, 120GB HD (or 60GB SSD), and 2GB of RAM for $1499. The form factor and other features are similar to the previous Model 2.

Alienware and Kingston

Alienware and Kingston were also showing off some cool stuff. Alienware had their new Core i7-based rigs on display, along with a CrossFire enabled notebook that features a pair of Radeon HD 3870 GPUs. Although we don't have any official word just yet, we suspect Radeon HD 4000-series CrossFire will be coming to a future Alienware notebook as well. And Kingston had an SSD on display, which was essentially a re-branded variant of Intel's excellent X25. Kingston's pricing should be similar to Intel's when the drives hit the market sometime in the not too distant future.

More to come from the show floor in the days ahead!

Tags: consumer electronics, CES, Trade Show

CES Pre-Show Sneak Peek

CES Pre-Show Sneak Peek

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