By Branko Miletic
While this year’s product launches at CES seemed more about consolidation than innovation, there were still a few products that caught my eye. Here, in no particular order, are my favourites from CES 2012.
Lumia 900 Smartphone
If Nokia can turn the Lumia 900 into a winner then the company will once again be a player in the world of smartphones. If not then the Finnish phone giant will slowly but surely go the same way as MySpace.
Roku Streaming Stick
Yes, it’s a stick, but not just any only USB-like stick. It is one that can stream movies and other media into your TV. OK, I know it’s not all that original but it does look good and can work on just about any TV.
Bloggie Live Camcorder
It’s got a 12.8 megapixel camera, at 1080p resolution, with an LED flash and an integrated USB connector for sharing videos on Facebook, Twitter, Google + etc, etc. What’s not to like?
Lantronix Apple iOS Print Server
It plugs into an Ethernet network allowing iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and iPod printing via any network-connected printer. And it looks good too.
Fujifilm X-Pro 1 Digital Camera
With the choice of 18mm, 35mm, and 60mm macro XF Leica lenses, 16-megapixel CMOS, stereo audio and the only camera in its class to sport an optical viewfinder, the X-PRO is a breath of fresh air in what has become a crowded field of also-ran camera clones in the market.
BlueStacks
An app that that allow users to run any of the 40,000 or so Android apps on Windows 8 when it comes out. This means Windows may finally be hip once again and also a lot of lawyers will get filthy rich after Google sues the pants of this company. Enjoy it while you can.
HP Spectre
It’s made almost entirely of Gorilla Glass, is black, has a 10-hour battery life and looks like something out of the film Minority Report. This 14-innch laptop is what laptops should all look like. Nice work HP.
Tagg
A GPS for our four-legged friends. Sure, you may think it’s silly and you may not have a pet, but with the price of vet care and not to mention how society reveres animals, a GPS for pets is way overdue. No I won’t be getting one, but I am sure Tagg will sell like hotcakes worldwide.
Samsung 55-inch OLED TV
This is what TV should be – clean, crisp, smooth and seamless. Any crisper and we’d be looking at real life. And yes, it’s thin – at 15.2mm, it is truly a feat of engineering. I won’t even guess at the RRP when it comes here, but it’s worth a trip to your local electronics store just for a peek.
Huawei Ascend P1 S
If you are going to make a smartphone, then you’ve got to do it right and Huawei has certainly ticked all the boxes with this model; Android 4.0 OS, a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1GB of RAM together with an 8-megapixel camera and looks to match.
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