Tablets at CES

Now that I’ve had a chance to reflect a bit on what I saw, and didn’t see, at CES 2011 in Vegas I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.

The first conclusion is that WiFi systems can be easily overtaxed. There were times when the WiFi pipes were so overloaded that no one was able to connect to the internet. One of the evening events we attended actually asked the press to turn off all of their WiFi devices so the vendors would have access for the products they wanted to show off.

When you consider the number of different products we saw at CES that offered wireless connectivity it’s no surprise that systems get overloaded. And what are promised for the future? Why even more wireless of course! I’m getting more convinced every day that Powerline networking is the smart path for many home/SOHO users.

The second thing that I noticed was the “wave” of tablets that were announced or hinted at. Vendors announced over 80 new tablets/slates using many OSs. Android seemed to be the OS of choice with Win7 and WebOS both far behind. We had a chance to try some of them hands-on and expect to review a slew of them this year. HP had no announcements at all but I was told by a very reliable source that they will have an announcement in early February.

Many companies that had tablets/slates all had the same caveat: the products we saw didn’t necessarily reflect what the final product would look like or the software would be like! It was obvious that the catch up with the iPad scramble was on!