ces2012

Crave giveaway: CES swag bag straight from Vegas

Weren't able to make it to CES this year? This week's giveaway is bringing CES to you!

We're giving away a nice, big bag full of CES 2012 swag collected by CNET staffers on the ground at the massive show in Vegas. You'll get all sorts of goodies--an iPad skin and iPhone case bearing the CNET logo; an 8GB Samsung memory card; a camera-shaped USB drive from Olympus; a free six-month subscription to Sony's Music Unlimited cloud-based music-streaming service; and a free one-year subscription to Absolute Software's LoJack for Laptops security app, which helps you recover your stolen tech safely. And more.

Plus, all your gear will arrive in a CES 2012 press bag complete with a nice little reporter's notebook where you can jot notes on all your gotta-have gadgets from the Sin City show. We estimate that you'll be getting about $250 worth of stuff. In this case, what happens in Vegas definitely is not staying in Vegas.

So how do you try to win this week's prize? Let me enumerate the basic rules. Please read them carefully; there will be a test. … Read more

What's the best Windows Phone from CES 2012?

LAS VEGAS--Microsoft's handset partners are finally coming out with some interesting hardware for the Windows Phone operating system.

Nokia and HTC each announced new high-end smartphones using the OS. So which one is best? Ask Maggie shares some advice. Also in this edition of Ask Maggie, I offer some advice to a reader interested in the jumbo-sized Samsung Galaxy Note.

Finally, the U.S. gets decent Windows Phone hardware

Dear Maggie, I have an HTC Droid Incredible from Verizon Wireless. And to be honest I never really loved it. I've had all kinds of problems with it since … Read more

What mattered most on CES Day 3

LAS VEGAS--Day 3 of the Consumer Electronics Show made some companies very happy.

CNET today announced the winners of this year's Best of CES Awards. The winners included a top product in 10 categories; the People's Voice Award, given to the product with the most votes from CNET readers; and the coveted Best of Show Award. This year's top honors went to LG's absolutely beautiful 55-inch OLED television. The LG 55EM9600 OLED TV promises the superb all-around performance of OLED technology in an ultra-thin panel. And when we say ultra-thin, we mean it; it's a … Read more

Congratulations, Nokia, now get to work

LAS VEGAS--With Windows Phone 7, we've spent a lot of time waiting.

We started by waiting for Microsoft to upgrade from the stodgy Windows Mobile. Then, we waited for the first Windows Phone 7 (WP7) handsets before waiting again for decent apps. And finally, once we had all of those things we waited for WP7 to really take off.

Granted, we're still waiting on that last point, but at CES 2012, Nokia may have shown us the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

On Monday, during an afternoon crowded with other press conferences, Nokia pulled in … Read more

Crave at CES: Lightning strikes on day three

LAS VEGAS--CES 2012 isn't over yet. In fact, day three of the show got downright electric with the announcement of the Best of CES 2012 Award winners and the chance to witness the powers of Dr. Megavolt. Get the buzz on what was hot right here in Crave's wrap-up.

Drum roll, please. The Best of CES 2012 Award winners are ...

Last year, Dong Ngo shot up a hard drive with a shotgun. This year, he watched as a IoSafe's Thunderbolt drive got zapped by a million-watt Tesla coil. We're definitely hanging out with him next CES.

Chirp, chirp. Your phone is done charging.

We still don't have an official release date for the Nintendo Wii U, but here's what HD Zelda might look and play like.

The 36-inch EXOdesk touch screen is like the Microsoft Surface--but cheaper! … Read more

Windows Phone does quality over quantity at CES

LAS VEGAS--2012 may mark Microsoft's last major CES keynote and presence, but with two successful Windows Phone announcements, it's going out with a bang.

CNET named both the HTC Titan II and the Nokia Lumia 900 finalists for the Best of CES award in the smartphone category, both supporting 4G LTE. Out of four total candidates, the Lumia 900 took the prize.… Read more

New dumb trend at CES: Splittable sound bars

LAS VEGAS--Sound bars have gotten cheaper, and they sound better and have more connectivity than ever before. Now, apparently you can snap them in half, even if you never wanted to.

Panasonic and Samsung both had "splittable" sound bars here at CES 2012 and I felt like I saw more of them on the show floor. The idea is you can split the bar into two speakers, place them on a stand, and create a more traditional 2.1 speaker system.

It's a nifty-looking feature, but it doesn't solve a problem anybody has ever had with a sound bar. I get plenty of reader mail about sound bars, but nobody has ever asked about a sound bar that can transform into separate speakers, probably because when they bought a sound bar, they wanted a sound bar.… Read more

PCs take the lead at CES 2012: Laptops, desktops, and hardware

LAS VEGAS--It's a rare CES for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform.

Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers.

The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the Acer Aspire S5) to the large and bold (the HP Envy 14 Spectre), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike Dell XPS 13). And 14- and 15-inch models, some with optical drives, dedicated graphics, and hybrid solid-state/hard drives, have begun to blur a category only in its nascency, leading us to ask if the category will suffer from unnecessary mission creep.

Will that mean that consumers will have a hard time identifying what an ultrabook is, or even feel the category has become overhyped and overexposed by the end of this year? Ultrabooks may be the industry's next great hope, judging by Intel's ultrabook-obsessed keynote presentation, but that doesn't mean consumers are never going to want anything different.

But not just ultrabooks Only a handful of other, non-ultrabook laptops really stood out.… Read more

2012 JVC receivers feature App Link for iPhone

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2012, JVC presented an upgraded version of its previous-generation Advanced External mode and renamed the connection "App Link mode."

Those looking to take advantage of iPhone and iPod Touch apps in their car can make use of App Link mode, found in the 2012 line of JVC car audio and video receivers, to display and control supported applications using the stereo's color touch screen. Okay, so JVC's not the first manufacturer to claim this functionality, but what strikes me as interesting is the selection of app partners announced as part of the initial … Read more

The 404 at CES 2012: Where we have the power (podcast)

LAS VEGAS--For our last live episode from CES, we're joined by Sony's John Koller who shows us the U.S. version of the PlayStation Vita and President of CBS Interactive Jim Lanzone...fingers crossed that we still have jobs after this!

First we sit down with Sony's Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller for a first glimpse at the American version of the PlayStation Vita mobile gaming device. Last year Jeff got the chance to look at a preview of the Japanese-only model, and the hardware is truly meant for the hard-core gamer.

Replete with dual-control pads, … Read more