CES 2006 - Day 3: Playstation 3, Quarter-size Hard Drives, SED and lots of TVs
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on January 9, 2006 1:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
There's no getting around the fact that this year's CES was absolutely huge. While we have yet to hear the official numbers, it does seem that attendence may be slightly down from last year. It is also possible that CES has gotten so wide and spread out that it is starting to look smaller than it is. But regardless of appearances, the show was a true playground for the tech enthusiast - both PC and Consumer Electronics varieties.
If you thought our Day 2 coverage was a bit on the long side, you should keep in mind that we wanted to include much more than we actually did. Our Day 3 coverage is no different, we saw everything from Canon's SED technology to a 0.85" 4GB hard drive.
So our coverage continues, with our first stop being a little company called Sony.
Sony at CES
We looked at Sony's set-top Blu-ray players in our Day 2 coverage but they also had two PC drives on display. There was nothing really separating these drives from others like them at the show, other than the fact that with Sony's styling they looked a bit better.
First up was an internal Blu-ray recorder:
and then an external unit:
Sony's Micro Vault Tiny drives were on display, at sizes ranging from 256MB all the way up to 4GB. These drives reminded us a lot of the PQI i-Stick we reviewed in our last USB drive roundup.
Sony had a more normal sized Micro Vault drive on display, but this one featured a fingerprint scanner for security:
Next up were more normal storage devices, with a Sony 1" micro drive:
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Sunbird - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
No problem for me here. IE6 on WinXP SP2.Aquila76 - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Hmm... I wonder if my account is experiencing the 'y2k6 bug' that wiped out some of the lifers.semo - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
some lifers accounts got wiped out?y2k6 bug?
man i should stop living under this stupid rock. soooo much hilarity.
Aquila76 - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
dwell, SampSon, buck and a few others got wiped out last week - all their posts got wiped too.ukDave - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Last word in 2nd last paragraph on pg14."comarpsion" should be "comparison".
Word.
Calin - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Why they compare the quality of digital TV seen on a shiny new digital TV to the quality on a 1980's analog TV? Why not compare to the latest analog only TV they built?Probably because the quality difference would be underwhelming?
Calin
psychobriggsy - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
If I read what that digital TV 'convertor' box did, then they have been available in the UK (and probably other European countries) for around 4 years already, initially as the ITV Digital boxes, and for the past couple of years as Freeview boxes.They usually have two SCART (Eurotel) outputs (what we have instead of S-Video outputs, ours can carry RGB signals as well as composite, but the connector is pig-large), one to the TV, another to a recorder, and an RF output in case the TV is old and doesn't have SCART inputs.
Cheap models (<£40) skimp of course, or 'specialise' in not having some of the features like RF output of digital signals. They also lose the 7 day program guide and only offer Now&Next, grrr.
Regardless, it should mean that these boxes will cost under $99 when they're released in the US, probably around $79. If they try it on with $199 then you know they're trying to rip you off, unless it downconverts terrestrial HD signals too.
semo - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
good point. how many ppl have tvs from the 1980s anymore (as far as the targeted audience of ces is concerned)Sc4freak - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Is it just me, or is the entire page completely screwed up?gsellis - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
I noticed that the index and pages were one off.