Hi All - long time lurker but infrequent poster here
Went to the show on Friday and will be putting up a few words and photos on my website (www.coolest-gadgets.com) over the coming week or so.
FWIW though here are some quick highs and lows in no particular order on both the "stuff" and "What hifi" sections.
Highs:
- Nokia internet tablet (still in prototype but nice idea)
- Nokia dancers
- Q-BE MP3 player for being so small
- The Dynaudio passat - very impressive for "stock" car hifi
- Naim N-vi (I confess to a Naim hifi bias so anything they do will get points from me )
- Sony blue ray demo even though a 20K projector isn't exactly "home cinema"
- High def TV in all its forms, from the various sources and displays
- Nuvu foldaway projector screen
- Sim2 3 chip DLP jobbie who's designation escapes me at the moment. Finally a DLP projector that doesn't make me seasick
Lows:
- LG's 32" LCD telly which was truly appalling (although their 65" plasma was great)
- Ferguson Hill transparent speakers. Looked great, especially next to a mac. Even allowing for the floor location though they still sounded pretty bad to me.
- Xbox 360. Yes I know that's heresy but speaking as a PC gamer I just didn't see anything to get excited about - games running in 1280x720 are not news to me! I guess the point is that it's 1/4 the price of my gaming rig so yes technology is coming along nicely but it wasn't the spiritual experience the hype lead me to believe it would be...
- 9 ****ing quid for a roll and a (small) coke? It was a nice cut of beef but even so...
Other Impressions: The "connected home" is a concept that's long overdue and quite a few companies are making inroads into that with audio streamers of one form or another. (About time, some of us have been doing it for years...)
I think that's about it - like I said I'll get around to putting some more specific notes together on the website when time allows.
Marc.
Went to the show on Friday and will be putting up a few words and photos on my website (www.coolest-gadgets.com) over the coming week or so.
FWIW though here are some quick highs and lows in no particular order on both the "stuff" and "What hifi" sections.
Highs:
- Nokia internet tablet (still in prototype but nice idea)
- Nokia dancers
- Q-BE MP3 player for being so small
- The Dynaudio passat - very impressive for "stock" car hifi
- Naim N-vi (I confess to a Naim hifi bias so anything they do will get points from me )
- Sony blue ray demo even though a 20K projector isn't exactly "home cinema"
- High def TV in all its forms, from the various sources and displays
- Nuvu foldaway projector screen
- Sim2 3 chip DLP jobbie who's designation escapes me at the moment. Finally a DLP projector that doesn't make me seasick
Lows:
- LG's 32" LCD telly which was truly appalling (although their 65" plasma was great)
- Ferguson Hill transparent speakers. Looked great, especially next to a mac. Even allowing for the floor location though they still sounded pretty bad to me.
- Xbox 360. Yes I know that's heresy but speaking as a PC gamer I just didn't see anything to get excited about - games running in 1280x720 are not news to me! I guess the point is that it's 1/4 the price of my gaming rig so yes technology is coming along nicely but it wasn't the spiritual experience the hype lead me to believe it would be...
- 9 ****ing quid for a roll and a (small) coke? It was a nice cut of beef but even so...
Other Impressions: The "connected home" is a concept that's long overdue and quite a few companies are making inroads into that with audio streamers of one form or another. (About time, some of us have been doing it for years...)
I think that's about it - like I said I'll get around to putting some more specific notes together on the website when time allows.
Marc.