Category: CES 2012

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Mobile Phones: CES 2012

This one is a little late, I know. The reason is that I had to think long and hard about what I genuinely thought about the mobile phone technology on display at CES this year. If you read the tech blogs then the majority seem to think that this was the year of Windows Phone 7. The usual suspects were fighting for their own corner, either praising or degrading Android depending on their faction.

It’s tough for me because I am a fully paid up member of the iPhone fanatic faction. Obviously Apple had zero presence at CES and so this should make me pretty unbiased right? Of course it doesn’t, I have, in the past, used both Android and WP7 phones – I have written my opinions of those phones on several other blogs and tweets and posts. Generally it comes to this, I don’t like Android, I think WP7 has a great future, I love bacon.

You’re probably wondering how bacon comes into the equation, I could probably lie and tell you that i’ll explain it later in the hope that i’ll keep you interested to the end, but in reality bacon represents Apple – who I can’t mention anymore in this, because they weren’t at CES. Also i’m slightly hungry.

The phones, there were more than two Phone operating systems on display at CES, but in reality there were only two that people cared about (by people I mean me), Android and WP7.

Android has exploded in the last couple of years. The sheer breadth of devices it’s present on means that there is genuinely an Android toy for any price bracket – hell I recently bought a fairly usable tablet for £46 (about $79) from http://www.chinabuye.com just to have something to play on. Because of this range Android has quickly become the leader in the Smartphone OS pack – but with a large range of devices comes the fragmentation problem. Google may want to pretend it doesn’t exist but simply put, that phone/tablet you buy today could well stop being updated a long time before it’s effective use it over, simply because of how hard it is to keep upgrades to the OS ported to every device. But then when you’re paying about 50 pence for a phone, who cares?

Windows Phone 7 is Microsofts attempt to escape the best forgotten past of Windows Mobile. Fortunately they realised that putting a mini windows desktop on a phone just made a really hard to use phone without giving any of the benefits of a full size windows desktop. The new OS has the Metro interface which is pretty neat, pretty pretty and pretty fast. Microsofts problem is that it’s about 2 years late to the party, the initial version of the OS (the one which should have got the customers excited) was missing some pretty major functionality (cut and paste, multitasking) and it has to get over the fairly bad image it has in the phone market and, in fact, the world all over.

How about we start by listing some of the highlight phones for each OS?

Android
Model Droid RAZR Maxx
Manufacturer Motorola Another phone in the near legendary Droid family of phones.  This one comes in with a slightly thicker chassis but with a potentially thunder stealing battery life.
Screen Size 4.3 inches
Processor 1.2Ghz 2 Core
Storage 32GB and microSD max 32GB
Memory 1GB
OS Android 2.3.5
Key Feature Estimated 21 hours of talktime
Availability Q2/Q3 2012
Price Less than $300
Review The Verge
Model Xperia Ion
Manufacturer Sony With a large screen, slimline looks and a stunning rear camera the Ion has strong basics, but Sony are hoping the addition of Playstation compatibility and built-in streaming to a wide variety of receivers including DLNA support will swing it with the media crowd.
Screen Size 4.6 inches
Processor 1.5Ghz 2 Core
Storage 8GB and microSD max 32GB
Memory 1GB
OS Android 2.3.7
Key Feature 12mp camera and Playstation support
Availability Q2/Q3 2012
Price Less than $300
Review The Verge

Windows Phone 7
Model Lumia 900
Manufacturer Nokia Moving to the WP7 platform was the best move Nokia could do, it enables them to produce stunning hardware like the Lumia series without having to try to keep up on the OS front.  The 900 adds LTE support for american 4G networks.
Screen Size 4.3 inches
Processor 1.4Ghz 1 Core
Storage 16GB
Memory 512mb
OS WP7 7.5
Key Feature Excellent build quality and stunning looks
Availability Q3/Q4 2012
Price Less than $300
Review The Verge
Model Titan II
Manufacturer HTC HTC builds on it’s winning formula of solid build quality and good screens – like most of the WP7 phones on display this adds LTE support.
Screen Size 4.7 inches
Processor 1.5Ghz 1 Core
Storage 16GB
Memory 1GB
OS WP7 7.5
Key Feature 16mp camera and dual flash
Availability Q2/Q3 2012
Price Less than $200
Review The Verge

 
It’s all pretty much of a muchness to be honest. The Android manufacturers are just adding more processor power, presumably until eventually the American Army buys 1000 of them and creates a super computer with a $20 a month contract. The WP7 phones were pretty much just adding LTE support. Now I know some of the omissions can be blamed on the current state of the OS. WP7 still hasn’t got support for different resolutions or proper external memory support. Android is in a transference state onto 4.0, a move which will hopefully bring some more stability with it.

So, who was the mobile phone winner at CES 2012? Both Android and WP7 showed off some nice kit. It may not have been radical but it was solid and for the most part nicely designed. The new mobile screens are uniformly gorgeous and bright. But no, neither Android nor WP7 won CES for me. If I had to pick a winner then i’d pick Intel.

From being left out in the cold in the Mobile Phone wars for the last few years they’ve now come back and had 3 big name manufacturers announcing medfield based phones. They demonstrated both ability in performance and energy saving that was at least on par with the best ARM based solutions available.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in this space, it was interesting to note that the only medfield phones being shown were running Android 4.0 too, but I can’t believe that MS hasn’t got an x86 build of WP7 on the way.

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CES 2012 – Mobile Technology

Well if CES is anything to go by then this year (and the next) we are going to see a huge number of new tablets across a bewildering range of prices.

If I had to guess then i’d say the success of the Amazon Fire has proven that a cheap, robust and simple tablet WILL sell well compared to the iPad.  Basically Amazon realised that there is no point trying to compete with the iPad on a feature by feature basis – it makes more sense to take the battle to the consumers wallet instead.  It’s a strange thing because this is pretty much the exact reason why Android on the mobile is selling so well, most of the phones can’t hope to compete with an iPhone in sheer ability – but they can sell for a far lower price.

So, along with the usual crowd – the Motorolas and the Samsungs – we also have a few lesser known manufacturers popping up.  These guys don’t have the street cred of the big boys, nor do they have massive marketing budgets.  But they do have the ability to knock out a simple and easy to use tablet for an incredibly small price – and that will very possibly be the key to limiting the iPads dominance through 2012, here are some of my favourites:

Model WikiPad:3D
Manufacturer WikiPad A low-end specced Tablet (1.2Ghz and not dual core) but with some decidedly non-lowspec abilities.  Not only does this tablet come with a fairly functional glasses free 3D screen but it’s also got the chops to playback 1080p video content, and was demoed playing Avatar in 3D without a single stutter.  It also has a clip on game control accessory.
Screen Size 8 inches
Processor 1.2Ghz 1 Core
Storage 8GB and microSD max 64GB
Memory 2GB
OS Android 4.0.3
Key Feature Glasses free 3D
Availability March 2012
Price Less than $250
Review The Verge
Model Novo7
Manufacturer MIPS An incredibly basic tablet, a single core 1GHz processor and not much storage, but it has a pretty good capacitive touchscreen can handle 1080p video playback and has HDMI output – all for $99
Screen Size 7 inches
Processor 1.0Ghz 1 Core
Storage microSD max 64GB
Memory 1GB
OS Android 4.0.3
Key Feature Incredibly low price, 1080p video playback
Availability Now in China, soon elsewhere
Price $99
Review The Verge
Model E70
Manufacturer Viewsonic It’s a fairly hefty tablet, but that just translates to a very sturdy feel, Viewsonic have been the princes of cheap tablets for a while, and this model has just the right level of technology to be a success at the price point
Screen Size 7 inches
Processor 1.0Ghz 1 Core
Storage 4GB and microSD max 64GB
Memory 1GB
OS Android 4.0.3
Key Feature Good build quality and HDMI out
Availability March 2012
Price $169
Review Engadget

That isn’t, of course, it for the tablet market – the big boys were there and showing some pretty impressive devices. We also had Intel with their first foray into the mobile market with their new Medfield chipset they bought along some impressive Android devices to prove the point that x86 could work in the mobile world.

We also had a huge array of tablet running on a Microsoft OS, not Windows Phone 7 but Windows 8. The devices were exceptionally diverse and, if manufacturer stats can be believed, have the stamina to last as long as the Android powered slates with the benefit of the Windows library behind them. Well, except a few of the devices were running on Arm chips – these, of course, won’t have access to the more legacy based titles – but we are promised that the majority of .NET titles will work.

I haven’t touched on the Phone side of things in this, mainly because it’s such a huge topic that it deserves it’s own article.

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CES 2012 – Television

CES has always been about seeing which way the various consumer companies are jumping.  With the rise of 3D television this years CES has seen a marked increase in the number of units sporting 3D as standard.  Whilst the manufacturers will almost certainly release cheaper versions without the 3D capability, at CES pretty much every brand has a strong 3D presence.

3D television hasn’t really taken off in a huge way, there are a number of barriers to adoption that have hindered it, namely:

  • high price of 3D capable televisions, at least compared to similar TVs without 3D.
  • use of glasses that limit the number of people who can watch, the majority of sets require glasses, and if you need active shutters they’re also incredibly expensive to buy.
  • confusing options, the majority of the TV using world doesn’t understand Active/Passive technology, viewing cones or the myriad of other options that come with 3D.
  • Scarcity of 3D content, there are more films being produced in 3D and many countries now have 3D capable satellite/cable programming – but it’s still a very small percentage overall.  Despite the claims made by entertainment companies at the last two E3’s there still isn’t a huge trade in 3D ready games titles either.

This year the manufacturers seem ready to address most of these issues:

  • by making 3D an almost standard option the price difference between 3D and non 3D sets has shrunk to almost nothing
  • many more glasses free sets were shown at CES this year, with a much wider viewing angle.
  • the sets themselves are getting smarter with much wider options for automatically setting up things, plus the industry seems to be moving more to glasses free or passive glasses – cutting the options and confusion down.
  • There isn’t much the manufacturers can do about this, but if the sales of 3D televisions pick up then more 3D content will be produced.  Most of the TVs shown have in-built media options, such as film streaming, so that should help deliver 3D content.  The ability to ‘fake’ 3D content from a 2D source has massively improved with this new generation too.  Like the adoption of HD before it, the industry will be looking to the games industry to push the standard – Microsoft’s adoption of HD in it’s 360 console almost single handedly kick started the HD revolution in several countries – especially the UK.

There are always going to be people who don’t value the addition of 3D to home TV, myself included, but CES has shown us that the industry certainly expects it to be a major part for the foreseeable future.