stuart test blog

The Consumer Electronics Show was a bit of a letdown to tell the truth. Not that I was there of course, but keeping an eye on sites like Engadget makes you feel like you’re there. Lots of products that won’t be launched for 5 years (if at all) and lots of thinner, larger TVs that will cost too much and also won’t ship for a few years.

One of the big drawcards to CES, sums up how irrelevant the whole event is: Panasonic’s 150 inch TV. Sure it’s impressive that they’ve managed to build one – but who cares? It’s not like you can rush down to Harvey Normans and put it on interest free credit for two years. Surely people must be aware that TVs will get larger while remaining as thin (or thinner) than they currently are. It really just becomes a pissing match between the big LCD manufacturers and we just lap it up with glee.

Then there was the Gizmodogate – where a couple of idiot bloggers ran round the showroom floor turning off TVs with a hacked remote control which only does one function – and that’s to turn off TVs. Just like laser pointers a few years ago, no doubt these TV-B-Gone devices will sell like hotcakes and will become the next major annoyances that we have to put up with.

I guess that CES, is just a huge over-indulgence of technology and is becoming more and more irrelevant as consumers become more picky with the gadgets they buy.