Smartphone Thoughts: My CES Experience: Part 3 - The Final Chapter

From Back to the convention center for Microsoft's Pavilion Party. Select members of the press were invited to hang out in the Microsoft Pavilion and check out all the latest and greatest Microsoft products while enjoying a few drinks and a couple appetizers too. I got a good look at some of the cool Media Center extenders that are planned for release soon. As well, I came across this really cool Denon receiver that will actually pull music from your network. The AVR-4308C is not just compatible with Vista, but it can also browse your network and play music from your shared folders. You know, a couple years ago, a single network jack behind my entertainment unit was more than enough. Now I have a Slingbox, a Media Center, a Xbox 360, and soon my receiver will need a jack as well.

I also took note of this slick Lenovo executive laptop that is fitted with a leather outer shell. Now, I know the computer world is moving towards customization, but leather wrapped? On a laptop? Come on.

Off to dinner with Symantec and HP. I had a great time talking with Symantec and even pressed them on why they've wasted time and energy on a Windows Mobile client and do they really expect any of us to install and use it? The answer is really very simple. They had to create the mobile client to satisfy industry analysts and investors that want them to be there. The threat level is next to nothing and they know it. However, now that they have a client, they can quickly and easily react to any threats that might pop up in the Windows Mobile world.

My last CES press meeting was with i-mate. Does anyone remember them? It's been a while since we've seen any smartphone releases from i-mate and the Ultimate series has been "coming soon" for almost a year now. My meeting was scheduled and re-scheduled a total of 4 times. When the dust finally settled, things turned out much better than I had expected. So what's i-mate been up to? Well, they've been working hard to make sure that the latest crop of phones are more stable than the first batch of devices produced after the HTC split. The devices should start hitting the street anytime now and they will be getting the Windows 6.1 upgrade when that's released later this year. Two of the Ultimate devices will have a XDA out allowing you to connect your device to a projector or LCD. In fact, the slide show that i-mate was doing for me was driven from an Ultimate series device. That's a huge benefit for anyone that does a lot of travel and presentations. No longer will you need to take your laptop along for the ride. Further, i-mate hinted that they are working on a foldable keyboard screen combo that will allow you to easily work on your device without actually hauling a laptop around. At first I thought this was a Folio wanna be, but there's no OS, processor, hard drive, or memory included. So that means it's more of a RedFly like device. The main difference here is the price. RedFly is priced around the $499 range and i-mate is planning on offering theirs for around $199. When you think of price, RedFly is pretty expensive for a travel keyboard/monitor. But i-mate's is much nicer and easier to handle - cost wise. I pushed a little more into their efforts on the digital picture frame market and the subscription service that's required. To my surprise, they have dropped the subscription service all together. I never liked the idea of having to pay a monthly fee just to send pictures to my own digital frame. So I'm really impressed with the changes i-mate has made in the last 8 to 10 months and I'm looking forward to what they do next.

So ends my first ever CES journey. It was a great show - nothing revolutionary by any means, but still a great chance to meet up with various companies and build valuable relationships. I will be back next year and I'm looking forward to a bigger and better show.