CES 2007 Picks and Pans

The best and worst of this year's show: creepy robots, Red Sox superstars, and, oh, yes, a lot of interesting technology.

From the PC World team members who spent the week on Show Patrol in Las Vegas, here is our report on the great, the good, the bad, and the horrible. We saw sensational servers, delicate e-dragonflies, combo HD players (at last!), odd wrist cameras, tech for your car, tech for your teeth, and more at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Supereasy PC-to-PC Transfers: I got home, and my wireless network was down--and I don't mean just a little depressed. I had to move files and images from my notebook to my desktop. But no wireless fiddling for me: I connected the two computers with The Tornado--a CD-size gadget with a retractable USB cable. In 3 seconds, I was transferring files with no software, device drivers, or hassles. It costs $60 and is available now. --Steve Bass

Welcome to the Social: Imagine a salad of MySpace, YouTube, Digg, and Amazon's Marketplace tossed lightly in a vinaigrette, and you have eSnips.com. Here people can share in their mutual obsessions while posting and/or selling their art, music, photos, or what-have-you. The interface is terrific and the integration among different communities (pets, poetry, the paranormal) is very well done. Best of all, spammers and scammers have yet to discover the Israel-based eSnips--though if it continues to grow (now at 1.2 million users and climbing, according to CEO Yael Elish), they surely will. --Dan Tynan

Your Content, Everywhere: Multiple paths to networking your content--this was an underlying theme of the show. Be it Microsoft's Windows Home Server, HP's MediaSmart Server, or any of a slew of networkable hard drives and multidisk arrays, this was, clearly, the year of the server. --Melissa J. Perenson

Best of Both Worlds, Part 1: LG Electronics' Super Multi Blue initiative debuted this week. Lest we forget this is the company that led the way to getting the rest of the industry behind the one-drive-does-them-all concept on the DVD side of the equation, LG's announcement of its BH100 player, due out in February, and its corresponding data drive, the GGW-H10N, due out in April, has changed the landscape of the Blu-ray/HD DVD turf war. --Melissa J. Perenson

Best of Both Worlds, Part 2: TiVo and Comcast, finally together. Fellow Comcast cable subscribers, need I say more? --Melissa J. Perenson

Simple Is Best: I love useful technology I can understand in 10 seconds, and SanDisk's USBTV fits that bill perfectly. This product will let you drag and drop video onto a USB drive and--with a very simple dock connected to the TV--play it without any other fuss. Great idea, simple execution. That's the ticket. --Ramon G. McLeod

Say Cheese: Based on the number of digital photo frames I saw at the show, I think the industry is forecasting this year to be a big one for people to integrate this gadget into their home decor. Pandigital's new line of photo frames looked particularly enticing; the ones I saw had sleek designs, great image quality, and a ton of functionality. --Melissa J. Perenson

Gadgets Got Nothin' on This One: The best celebrity sighting of the week (for me, anyway) had little to do with CES, but it still made my week. Red Sox pitcher and World Series hero Curt Schilling was on my flight to Las Vegas from Boston. He sat in coach, picked up his own luggage at baggage claim, and was very friendly to all the folks who wanted to stop and shake his hand. His presence in Las Vegas likely had nothing to do with CES, but catching a glimpse of his World Series ring was a great start to the week for this Red Sox fan. --Liane Cassavoy

You Can Never Be Too Clean: Peel the liners off the top and bottom of a "Peel & Clean Pad" and sandwich it between your notebook's keypad and display. Instantly, dirt, hair, and yesterday's lunch is toast, so to speak. A pack of four pads costs $13. --Steve Bass

Right Product, Wrong Show: The HydraBrush Express cleans your teeth on both sides, and according to the maker's claims, even lovingly massages your gums. Too bad they couldn't hook it up to the Farm Fresh Lightcast Lightshow. It could have made for a teeth-gnashing demo. --Steve Bass

Wake-Up Calls With a Jolt: Worried that you won't wake up in time to make a 7 a.m. meeting? The $30 Sonic Shaker is an alarm clock with a bed vibrator. If that doesn't do it, the 90-decibel alarm will. --Steve Bass

Dance Fever: An entertainingly quirky piece of entertainment at the Intel booth let conventioneers dance on a stage and then have their moves turned into a video with multiple copies of themselves boogying at one time, in emulation of the company's "Multiply" ad campaign. An Intel employee told me that M.C. Hammer was attending CES, but declined to partake in this show unless he could perform to his own music. --Harry McCracken

A Hamster Wheel for Humans: Intel was demonstrating an exercise bike connected to a PC and an LCD monitor (or rather, this sweaty guy was demonstrating it). He was competing against other on-screen cyclists, and when he pedaled harder, the bicyclist on the screen moved faster; when he moved the handlebars, the on-screen cyclist turned. Similar devices have been around for a long time, but this one looked very realistic--maybe realistic enough to get me off the couch every once in a while. --Alan Stafford

For Serious Urban Cowboys (and Cowgirls) Only: On top of the treasure trove of cutting-edge electronic gadgets CES always delivers, the obscure corners of the convention center are always good for a few laughs. Here's my favorite chuckle from CES 2007: the Giddyup Core Exerciser. Now, having never ridden a bucking bronco, I can't testify to its ability to deliver a six-pack stomach, but I can tell you this: I'd rather be caught dead of a thumb cramp with a game controller in my hand than be seen riding this miniature mechanical bull. Its "exercise" is billed as "no impact"--as long as the neighbors don't spy you through the window. The price is expected to be around $600 (Stetson not included). --Eric Butterfield

How Low Can Projectors Go? ViewSonic demonstrated a DLP projector, aimed at gamers, that it said would sell for $399 after rebate. --Harry McCracken

USB Monitors: Both Quartics and DisplayLink showed the ability to run a monitor on a USB connection. That makes setting up multiple monitors a whole lot easier and, with the wireless USB technology that's being introduced, it could lead to a completely wireless desktop. --Edward N. Albro

No-Wires HDMI: One of the biggest disappointments that HDTV buyers experience is that they just can't get around all the ugly wires they need to connect devices to their panel. But Philips's new Wireless HDMI product should end that problem later this year. What's really nice is that it will work with any TV that uses HDMI connections (and all modern ones have that) instead of doing some kind of proprietary nonsense. Hat tip to Philips on this one. --Ramon G. McLeod

Blue Burners Mature: Blu-ray Disc burners now have to keep pace with Lite-On's new drive, the 2X Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer LH-2B1S, which is the cheapest yet at just $650. And, finally, Toshiba has announced a desktop-ready HD DVD-R writer. --Melissa J. Perenson

These Will Tick Off Steve Jobs: Perhaps Apple is too distracted by Cisco's lawsuit to direct its legal attention toward the maker of the Podspeakers. These oddball home speakers would be right at home in Barbarella's living room. They're made by the Spanish company Scandyna and sell for $700 a pair. --Alan Stafford

Yes Honey, I'll Turn It Down: Yamaha has come up with a marriage saver. The My Beam feature on its latest Digital Sound Projector (YSP-1100, $1700) lets the person holding the remote focus all the sound from the TV on them, so as not to disturb others in the room. The sound projector, a one-box speaker system that produces great surround sound, already had high spousal-approval ratings for its sleek design and uncluttered look, but this new feature practically makes it a valid wedding anniversary gift. Well, that may be going a little too far. --Ramon G. McLeod

Refreshingly Fast and Clear: We saw a demo of 120-Hz refresh rates on LCD HDTVs from Samsung at last year's CES, and were way impressed by the great improvement in clarity over standard 60-Hz refresh rates. But frustratingly, no 120-Hz TVs came out in 2006. This year Philips, Sharp, and Samsung will all have this doubled rate in much of their lines. It's not quite as dramatic an improvement as moving from standard definition to hi-def TV, but it is a very noticeable upgrade in picture quality. --Ramon G. McLeod

Can You Hear Me There? Here's a combo offer to consider: Panasonic's Globalrange VoIP and landline expandable telephone system. It includes three years of unlimited call service via broadband. All for $129 with an answering machine (however, calls must be made to another Globalrange user). --Melissa J. Perenson

Handheld Multimedia, Plus Wi-Fi Positioning: I was interested in two novel features from the iRiver W10 multimedia player. Wi-Fi positioning can show your location (to the nearest hotspot) on an on-screen map; the screen could also show, say, the nearest restaurants. The W10 will work as a phone over VoIP, too. --Eric Butterfield

Instant Cell Phone Charger: Think back to a situation in which you desperately needed to make a call from your cell phone but the battery was dead. It was dreadful, agonizing, and brutal, no doubt. Now think about how that situation could have been entirely avoided with the Turbocharge Instant Cell Phone Charger, which, true to its name, instantly charges your cell phone when you merely plug it into your cell phone jack. Having one of these could certainly help anyone with a cell phone. --Robert Cardin

High-Quality TV in Your Hand: V Cast Mobile TV offers a good range of broadcast content--all the big networks save ABC (and that's likely coming), plus major cable nets like MTV and USA. The picture quality in the live demo was terrific, and switching channels had less lag than my satellite service does most days. Coming in the first quarter of this year, this MediaFLO-based service should seriously entice TV addicts into switching carriers. --Anush Yegyazarian

A Phone to Flip For: Nokia's new N93i phone is really a camcorder first and a phone second. The clamshell-style phone flips open and then twists, making it look like an actual camcorder. Unfortunately, though, you may not be able to get your hands on this device here in the United States: Nokia says this phone--like far too many of the handsets here at CES--will likely be available overseas only. --Liane Cassavoy

Minutes? What Minutes? Going over your minutes on your cell phone is a real drag. Paying outrageous long-distance service fees to your telephone company also sucks. But the AT&T Softphone allows you to make unlimited phone calls through your laptop or PC for only a small monthly flat rate. So go ahead and call your family from all over the world, and let them know how happy you are. Besides, your mother's worried sick about you. --Robert Cardin

Reflection Perfection: I don't normally like phones just because they're pretty. But the Shine cell phone, on display at the mammoth LG Electronics booth in the LVCC, is really pretty. The phone features a sliding cover that's a mirror and a display--activate the phone, and you'll see it come to life. The Shine also includes a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth wireless, and a music player. Unfortunately, it's currently available only overseas. --Liane Cassavoy

Surf's Up--And So's This Camera: Take the waterproof Digital Ego 3 Sports Wrist Camera along while you surf, kayak, or dive in up to 100 feet of water. Flip it up, take your shot (or video), and snap it back onto your wrist. I tried to shake it off my hand, and couldn't. This 4-megapixel puppy weighs a little over 4 ounces, and shoots pictures and 40-frames-per-second videos with sound. Take at look at my video of it. --Steve Bass

Superlightweight Power to Go: Mobility Electronics' slimmed-down iGo laptop power adapter looks incredibly enticing if you want to carry one device for charging your notebook and other portable peripherals while on the go--whetheron land, in a car, or in the air. --Melissa J. Perenson

Block Out the World: Shure's new SE2120 earbuds did an admirable job of blocking out the chaos of CES--and delivered crisp, punchy sound. The pair comes with foam sleeves in various sizes and runs $150. --Eric Butterfield

Return of the Transistor Radio: Well, not really, but Samsung's new K5 Digital Audio Player includes a nice slide-out speaker, something long missing from MP3 players, while still retaining pocketability. And its OLED screen navigation is outstanding. --Ramon G. McLeod

Face-Detecting Camera: The $300 Fujifilm FinePix F40fd makes the most of face-detection technology. In addition to using it to optimize exposure and focus, the 8.3-megapixel F40fd can automatically crop portraits, as well as automatically order as many prints as there are faces in the frame. --Eric Butterfield

Might as Well Jump: Visteon, which makes OEM car-stereo head units for Ford, is set to jump into the retail market with a few HD Radio products. The keenest of the three is the HD Jump, a $249 kit that you can use to add HD Radio capability to your car--and, with the addition of a $60 cradle, to your home stereo, too. The module is the first transportable HD Radio product; you can plug it into the car cradle or into the home cradle. It's not battery powered, though, so you can't jam to it while bopping down the sidewalk. --Alan Stafford

Bluetooth the Blues to Your Car Stereo: Dice Electronics announced a component that allows you to stream digital audio from your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone or other Bluetooth device to your car stereo. You can control playback via your car's controls (so you don't have to fiddle with your phone while you drive). The price ($249) seems a little steep, but the kit includes a nice cradle for your phone and a microphone, because it also allows hands-free operation of your phone. --Alan Stafford

Mini Player, Maximum Storage: You're sitting on an airplane eagerly awaiting the in-flight movie, only to be disappointed to hear that the feature presentation is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Now, this agonizing ordeal can be happily avoided. The SanDisk Sansa View 8GB multimedia player allows you to carry approximately 16 movies with it, as well as music and photos, meaning your flight can pretty much circumnavigate the globe before you're forced to watch the same movie twice. --Robert Cardin

Gadget Luxury: Ramsey Oten, president of Sena Cases, is an engineer, but his grandfather was a leather worker. And he seems to have brought both sensibilities to bear on his cases for cell phones and other handheld gadgets. Made in Turkey, they're elegant, well-crafted, and engineered to fit, well, like a glove. --Edward N. Albro

Case Deluxe: Do-it-yourself giant Antec showed a new PC case with two power supplies (and two power cords) designed to provide sufficient juice for even the most monstrous of graphics cards, plus a built-in gooseneck lamp on the inside to help hobbyists see what they're doing when they crack open the case. --Harry McCracken

Beyond the Beige Box: Stylish living-room PCs--including Sony's TP-1 and HP's Touchsmart PC--add some much-needed pizzazz to an otherwise ordinary category. --Melissa J. Perenson

First of a Kind: The Asus XG Station, a device that allows PCI Express graphics cards from a desktop computer to work with a notebook, exemplifies what CES is all about to me. Innovative? Check. Lets me expand the capabilities of a product I already own? Check. I just hope it lives up to its potential when it launches in May. --Danny Allen

So Cool: Dell's liquid-cooled gaming PC, the XPS 710 H2C Edition, announced at Michael Dell's keynote address, looks impressive. Inside a mammoth, black case is a new two-step liquid-cooling system that takes the heat off of an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor overclocked to 3.2 GHz. The PC also contains two nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics boards, each with 768MB of memory. While we haven't tested this PC yet, it looks fast, and at $5499, you'd hope it is. --Narasu Rebbapragada

Simple Is Best, Part 2: Belkin's new Battery Backup with Flashlight is yet another of those "why didn't anyone think of this before" ideas that I love to discover at CES. I live in an area where power outages are not unusual because of high winds, and I'm constantly looking for my flashlights. They're always stored in places so safe, we can't remember where they are. But one of the first things I do when the lights go out is make sure I power down my computers, all of which have backup batteries (UPS units). Getting to a flashlight when I do this chore is just a wonderful idea to me. --Ramon G. McLeod

Color Du Jour: I lost track of how many products--TVs, computers, monitors, and more--were decked out in extremely shiny, "piano gloss" black cases. Highly polished black, it seems, is the new beige. --Harry McCracken

Crazy Product I Don't Want to Try: The eXkate is an electric skateboard that uses a wireless remote control. You can scoot along at up to 15 mph for more than 200 miles on the Extreme 4.0 model. (Not me, thanks). Another model flies at 22 mph, and that's in less than 4 seconds. Catch the video of a brave guy (still not me) zipping along at CES. Prices range from $123 to $270. --Steve Bass

Run, Asimo, Run: Honda's Asimo robot returned to CES, newly improved and capable of running at a 4-miles-per-hour clip. I didn't see the live demo, but in Honda's video loop he moved with the most humanlike grace I've ever seen from a mechanical man. --Harry McCracken

It's Your Robot: Now you can make a Roomba do just as you please. With iRobot's $130 Create platform--essentially a Roomba without the vacuuming tools--you can make the little bot of your dreams. --Eric Butterfield

Speaking of the Roomba: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then iRobot should be blushing--or calling its patent attorney. Two firms, P3 International and Microrobot, showed off spherical floor-sucking vacuum bots that compete with those in iRobot's Roomba line. P3's offering is called simply Robotic Vacuum. This $60 vacuum-only robot sells for less than half the price of the $150 entry-level Roomba. Microrobot demonstrated its $1000 model uBot, which vacuums and swabs your floors and costs nearly three times as much as a competing offering from iRobot. --Tom Spring

Can I Try? Can I Try? The folks behind the Robosapien have done it again. WowWee's $40 remote-controlled FlyTech Dragonfly was one of the most fun new products on (and above) the show floor this year. Many passersby who were swooped by inexperienced pilots were initially annoyed, but soon found themselves waiting to have a go. --Danny Allen

A 401(k) Retirement Plan Alternative: Who knew metal detectors had gone so high-tech? Teknetics offers 14 models in its brochure, the newest of which has a big LCD screen and can detect coins up to 15 inches deep in soil. The T2 costs $999, and its most popular uses are "coin shooting, relic hunting, and gold prospecting." Of course, if you lose your tiny MP3 player on the beach, it'll find that too. --Eric Butterfield

Ashes to Ashes, Stardust to Stardust: The storied Stardust--once the inspiration for the mobbed-up casino in Martin Scorsese's Casino--sat quietly on the strip, robbed of its neon and its dignity. Shuttered back in November, it's due to suffer an ignominious implosion in 2007 to make way for a $4 billion casino-hotel-retail development. --Harry McCracken

Format Wars--Yawn: The ongoing tussle between Blu-ray and HD DVD for next-generation-DVD top honors has gotten old. Really, really old--even with the announcement of a dual-format player (from LG), and a single disc that stores both Blu-ray and HD DVD movies, one on each side (Warner's Total HD). --Melissa J. Perenson

Down on the DRM Drag: Video everywhere, on any device, at any time. Except not. Or at least not yet. The technology for much of it exists, and we see bits and pieces of it in products like the Slingbox or TiVo to Go, and in the forthcoming Windows Home Server and Verizon Wireless's V Cast Mobile TV. The biggest stumbling block to a connected, converged multimedia future is incompatible and clunky digital rights management schemes. Some awfully smart people have been working on this for years; would it be so hard to occasionally agree on an unobtrusive standard or two? --Anush Yegyazarian

Dopiest Light Show at CES: The Farm Fresh Lightcast Lightshow (about $40) is a portable light show that connects to a music source--say, an iPod, an MP3 player, or, if you're a masochist, your son's guitar. With 33 LEDs of various colors, you can, and I'm quoting here, "create the ultimate synchronized light show experience." Thanks, but I'll pass. --Steve Bass

See Ya, SED: One of CES 2006's most-hyped launches was for TVs based on the new SED technology codeveloped by Toshiba and Canon. They looked pretty cool then--but they haven't shipped, and aren't on display this year. In theory, they'll still reach the market, sometime later this year. --Harry McCracken

Okay, What's the Catch? It seemed like half the cabs on the Vegas Strip sported ads on their backside that made reference to free 1080p BenQ projectors. Not surprisingly, there was a lengthy disclaimer--but I never got close enough to read all the fine print and learn how to get my projector. --Harry McCracken

TV Texting for Teens: Watch for a new cable-television channel, Noyz, with an entirely new concept: music videos. (Oh, right--there used to be a channel like that a long time ago.) A newer concept: The channel will allow people to send text messages that will appear on the TV screen. The kids might go for it--and the person I talked to about it said that it went over big in a test in Phoenix. But each text message--even "heh"--costs 99 cents! I mean, like, OMG WTH!?!!! --Alan Stafford

Senseless Violence? I'm sure some among the technorati are quite interested in the protection. And maybe the latest version is more tech-savvy than I give it credit for. But I'm still trying to reconcile why I stumbled across a Taser booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. The new Taser C2 does come in cool-looking electric-blue and metallic-pink color schemes, though. Hmm, perhaps I just answered my own question. --Danny Allen

Bringing Nothing to the Table: I don't mean to be jaded, but how many variations of unimaginative me-too iPod speaker docks without any real innovation does the "iPod ecosystem" really need? And don't you walk away just yet, digital photo frames: You're starting to fall into this trap, too, so I'm putting you on notice. --Danny Allen

SVA 15-inch LCD: It's not the display itself that I'm quibbling with, so much as its size. Why spend $169 for a 15-inch LCD screen when about the same amount of money gets you a 17-inch equivalent? This size of display seems best reserved for the photo frame at this point. --Narasu Rebbapragada

You Can't Have One: My admiration of the Shine phone (earlier in this story) leads me to this pan: companies, especially cell phone manufacturers, showing products we just can't get our hands on here. LG isn't the only one doing this. Motorola is showing off a cool phone with handwriting recognition that's available only in China, and HTC America showed me the Artemis, a GPS-enabled handset that lacks a keypad--and is, of course, available only overseas. While these phones may one day make their way to the United States, for now all we can do is wait. --Liane Cassavoy

Without the Vegas Clue: So who are the morons who decided to schedule CES at the same time as Macworld Expo, forcing many attendees to scramble between Vegas and San Francisco, and allowing Steve Jobs to overshadow the entire show with a single product? --Dan Tynan

Creepy Award: Hands down, this goes to WowWee's animatronic Elvis bust. Something about the bust, which sings, speaks, and curls his lip in The King's patented sneer, just weirded us out. Elvis has left the building; let's stop trying to bring him back. You can see the (fake) King for yourself in this video. -- Ramon G. McLeod and Edward N. Albro

Car-Tech Wackiness: Automotive electronics may be getting more sophisticated, but they still have their challenges. During a demo I attended of the Ford Sync communications and computing platform, a Microsoft executive had to fumble with dashboard buttons for what seemed like an eternity before he could figure out how to select a song. Meanwhile, a demo of Wireless USB's ability to stream video from a handheld media player to a headrest-mounted screen in a Mercedes was modestly cool, but when I asked how long it would take until such technology would be on the market, I was told it was six to seven years (!!) away. --Harry McCracken

Ugliest Digital Music Player: AOL's prototype digital media player looks like the IT department, instead of a product design team, came up with it. The unit sports a brushed-steel casing and an awkward clickable touchpad navigation system. It made me wonder whether I was in a time warp--circa 1997. To be fair, it is a prototype, and the guts of the unit are anything but 1997 technology. The device is made in partnership with China-based manufacturer Haier. The one on display had a 30GB hard drive, played videos, and had built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for streaming and downloading songs from music services. --Tom Spring

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Info Center.

PC World Editors