At the show there
were several thousands of booths and to be honest not enough time in the day to
really take a close look at everything that I wanted. What we decided to
do here is put up a few company's booths which I thought deserved some
recognition for either new fields, new products, or for having an
impressive booth. All of these booths were great and I wished there was
more time in the day to go in depth on all of them, but I needed to
focus on the new products and reviews for our site so here is a brief
summary of the booths that we just don't have time to go in-depth on.
SOYO had a very modest
booth in the innovations section of the expo. SOYO is known for their
motherboards and to be honest, if you go back far enough, like the K6 era
of motherboards,
SOYO was the first I can remember to give the consumer
over clocking capabilities in the BIO's. At the show, SOYO revealed
their
new division of products, moving away from the motherboards. It appears
they are now focusing on the new VOIP phone systems and peripherals. SOYO has a complete line of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) phones
and hubs that make connecting to anyone in the world easy as long as you
have a broadband connection. They also sell the services needed, not just
the hardware. Plus, the rates seem competitive.
SOYO had some of
their new peripherals at the show as well. The USB driven 20 gig backup
/ external driver device, the BayONE internal USB drive, & their USB
external Hub. The 20 gig drive "Cigar
HD20 " is perfect for storing MP3's or backing up any information you
have. The Cigar HD20 is small and easy to use like most USB
devices. This product is a great addition to the SOYO line of products. The BayONE, as our readers know, is a product SOYO provided to
our team a while back. We did a complete review on this product and as
mentioned in this review, this product is a great
solution for anyone in need of a
versatile media reader. Note that I was informed at the show that SOYO is now providing this in alternate colors to make it easier to
match the consumer's case color. Take a look at our review of this
product
HERE.
The last product I noticed was their 12 in one USB
hub/media reader, this is a totally external device similar in capability
to the BayONE with some extras like the USB hub capability. For a
complete detailed listing of these devices check out SOYO's website
HERE. I
wish I could go into these products more, however, we need to move on and
concentrate on new reviews and articles. I would like to thank SOYO for
all the information they provided us at the show and also via e-mail
concerning this article.
Creative
Labs was also dispersed throughout the show in multiple areas, promoting their new line
of MP3 solutions as a direct competitor to the iPOD. These little
beauties are nice and compact with very similar features and looks like the iPOD
with a few extra's like drive size, various colors and compatibility
differences, not to mention they tried to promote it as a different way of using
music.
Their product, "ZEN", will be marketed heavily this year and I
expect to hear and see a lot about the new player. I believe even
Napster is being co promoted as the download or web engine ZEN will be
supported on. Creative has always
been known for their sound devices so this is a great fit to the
Creative Labs line of products.
A new hand
held gaming
solution had the CES show a "buzz." The "Gizmondo" takes the portable world
to the next step. This little device has a slightly higher price then your normal pocket
gaming system but for good reason. This device
provides much more then a few cool games. This device also has a built
in digital camera using a regular flash reader memory card that also
allows the user to not only take pictures, but in the future, play any PC
based games as well, so you are not limited to a cartridge or buying
add-ons. Also, the Gizmondo has built in GPS for any time you need to
know exactly where you are on vacation or if you get lost driving
out-of-town. Gizmondo has even taken the GPS capability and added some games
like "COLOURS" that integrate the game with other people in the
immediate area allowing you to battle internet style from anywhere.
I am not exactly sure how this works, but when they finally release
these games
it will be
cool to see all of these features in one device. The showmanship that
the folks at the CES expo provided was exceptional. They had everything
you could think of to help promote and bring the crowds.
Extraordinary they had everything from "HOT" babes to celebrities,
scratcher's and break dancing. This type
of entertainment drew in mass numbers of people and when the exhibitions
were done the game was easily available for all to try. I expect to hear
a lot about this product in the near future and can see this
system taking portable gamming to the next level.
Axion, an
electronics device manufacturer, was at the show as well with a very
energetic booth that drew a lot of people due to their daily give aways
of LCD and peripheral devices.
This
company has every type of LCD device a person could need ranging
from PC monitors to standard LCD TV's in a range of sizes and styles.
I
was very impressed with not only the amount of products they provide,
but also the clear resolutions the products had. Axion is not a
distributor line but also the manufacturer making their products a
little more affordable for the general public. Axion also has a line of
MP3 and portable media devices that had extraordinary sound quality and
a very easy to use compact design. They ranged from DVD players to toy
like devices for playing your MP3's. Not to mention the staff was
very energetic making the booth a success.
