CES 2003 Picks and Pans

From neat digital home gear to bizarre celebrity sightings, here are the best, worst, and silliest of consumer electronics.

Yardena Arar, PCWorld.com

LAS VEGAS-- Where does the PC world end and the universe of consumer electronics begin? At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, it isn't always easy to tell.

With more and more hardware intended for the home acquiring silicon-based smarts and the capability to work with a PC or digital assistant, this show has now overtaken Comdex as the place to introduce exciting--and sometimes ridiculous--new personal digital technology.

PC World's team of editors trod miles of show (and hotel suite) floors to identify the highlights and low points of the 2003 CES. Here goes:

Scene on the Show Floor

Biggest joyride: A CES press event let attendees test-drive Dean Kamen's Segway motorized urban people movers. Zipping along at up to 12 mph in a hotel ballroom was a blast; I'm still not sure I want these things on sidewalks in my own neighborhood, though...(and before the evening ended, one joyrider was injured). --Harry McCracken

Segway segue: My top CES pan: The guy who had the chutzpah to ride his Segway on the show floor. And no, he wasn't just demo'ing it. His riding skills were too perfect and he had a slightly self-conscious look on his face. --Tracey Capen

Whatever happened to sandwich boards? Strutting from one convention hall to another is a rather strange but entertaining robot reminiscent of the Tin Man, only much, much taller at about 9 feet, with flashing lights and metallic colors galore. "Whassup?" the giant roars at innocent bystanders. "My batteries are bigger than you." The wisecracking robot can be hired to wear corporate logos. --Aoife McEvoy

Neatest trend: A profusion of creative products that do interesting things with the broadband and wireless connections that so many folks have in their homes. Examples include a Wi-Fi-enabled car stereo from Rockford Fosgate (you can download tunes from your PC to a garaged car) and D-Link's affordable videophone system. --Harry McCracken

Least tempting invitation to be charitable: Signs touted the CES 5K, a charity run on Saturday morning. By late Thursday afternoon, after tramping around the show for a full day, I suspected I'd be lucky if I had any feeling in my feet come Saturday.... --Harry McCracken

Least coherent brand extension: One booth offers a complete line of video and audio products under the Polaroid name. The company makes swell instant cameras, of course, but does that translate into expertise at producing loudspeakers? Runner-up: One-time typewriter king Smith Corona, promoting its refurbished headsets. --Harry McCracken

Most entertainingly bizarre celebrity sighting: Almost as many celebs as civilians appeared at the show--from Quincy Jones to Deborah "Don't Call Me Debbie" Gibson. Most unexpected: Falcon Crest vixen and Old Navy spokesactress Morgan Fairchild, promoting Swanson TV Dinners at one press event. (Why was Swanson at an electronics show? Something about upgrading their food to match today's fancy home theaters, apparently.) Chatting with her about the show floor and Salisbury steak was fun, if more than a tad surreal. --Harry McCracken

Most entertainingly entertaining celebrity sighting: Guitar legend and Byrds mainstay Roger McGuinn rocked out at the booth of satellite radio company Sirius. He was great, disproving--perhaps for the first time--the common wisdom that all trade show entertainment is inherently awful. --Harry McCracken

Jagged little booth entertainment: Alanis Morissette also showed up at Sirius's soundstage. A cranky, conformity-spurning singer serenading conventioneers in Las Vegas--isn't it ironic? --Harry McCracken

Hugged your PDA today? No showgirls or spokesmodels for Hewlett-Packard: Instead, visitors are greeted by a person-size inflatable PDA, modeled after the recently released IPaq 5450, complete with wireless antenna and biometric fingerprint reader. Love it or hate it, it was certainly eye-catching and put the focus on the product. --Anush Yegyazarian

Butterflies aren't free: Instead, they are confined to the Las Vegas Convention Center all weekend, hawking Microsoft's MSN 8. --Anne B. McDonald

Digitizing the Living Room

Loneliest mascot: Microsoft's booth offers show-goers the opportunity to have their picture taken with MSN's Butterfly mascot. In TV ads, the Butterfly's a geeky guy in a goofy suit; the Las Vegas versions, curiously, are shapely young women in skintight outfits. Even so, they seemed lost in Maytag Repairman-like solitude: Did anyone seize the opportunity to get a photo with them? --Harry McCracken and Eric Dahl

TiVo net: Fans of the digital video recorder and service can soon add Series 2 units to a standard wired or wireless network via a new Home Media Option. You can stream music and photos from PC to TV, share programs among TiVo units, and access program scheduling remotely. The software download seems a tad overpriced at $99 (plus network hardware), but the ultra-slick interface might make this the first truly usable living room media center. TiVo nuts at the show seem to love it. --Tom Mainelli

PC/wide-screen LCD-TV: We've seen a lot of PC-TV hybrid attempts, typically with lots of cables and special software, but here's a different answer: Hy-Tek has wed a 30-inch, fast-response LCD monitor to a 2.5-GHz Pentium 4-based computer running Windows XP Pro. The fully functional 5-inch-thick computer displays TV, cable, satellite, or video from any source; plays DVDs and music or video CDs; and records TV programs with an on-board digital video recorder. It's shipping in January for $6495. --Ramon G. McLeod

Go video indeed: I was impressed with the $250 GoVideo networkable DVD player from Sonicblue. The company says this good-looking set-top box simplifies streaming audio and video media files from any PC to the GoVideo box. Fast setup, a great interface, and included networking hardware should let you easily move fun from the PC into the living room. --Anne B. McDonald

A box full of boxes: With VCRs, CD players, DVD players, cable boxes, and digital video recorders, many home entertainment hutches are rapidly starting to look like electronics warehouses. Products like Digeo's Moxi Media Center and the DCP501 from Motorola seek to tame that clutter, putting many functions in one box. The Moxi has a cable receiver, 80GB hard drive for video recording, and a built-in Wi-Fi network adapter; the DCP501 has a cable receiver, DVD player, and five channels with 100 watts of power for home theater. --Ed Albro

Recorded video to go: Lots of folks are showing products for recording TV video to a hard-disk-based living room box. CenDyne's Active Video Disk takes a different approach: This recording device contains a removable hard drive (40GB, 60GB, or 80GB), which lets you easily offload recordings to your PC. It's expected to ship by midyear for $299. --Melissa Perenson

Affordable home stereo digital music player/recorder: TDK's DA-9000 has a 20GB hard drive, LCD screen, and a 6X CD-RW drive for writing to music CDs. Earlier stereo audio components with a hard disk drive, such as those from HP and Sonicblue, cost a small fortune at $1000 or more; when it ships in April, the DA-9000 will cost just $379. --Melissa Perenson

Satellite radio on a boom box: XMSatellite Radio is bringing its 101 digital radio channels to home and portable stereos. The Delphi SKYFi audio system is built around a $130 receiver that can attach directly to a home stereo equipped with a $70 adapter kit antenna or integrated into Delphi's $100 portable boom box. You can use the receiver in a car by purchasing a $70 cassette deck adapter--or for a more professional-looking setup, you can add an FM Modulator ($50). XM's service costs $10 monthly. --Ramon G. McLeod

Rock on: Telex Electro-Voice, best known for doing sound for bands like the Rolling Stones, launched a $400 set of 5.1 PC speakers that were made to play loud. Larger than typical PC speakers, they feature modified horn tweeters and 4-inch midrange speakers in the satellites; the center channel has two 3-inch woofers and a subwoofer with a 125-watt amplifier and a 6-inch-long throw speaker. The sound? Major league. Plus, Telex marketing communications manager Tim Klabunde has some of the coolest tattoos. --Ramon G. McLeod

You paid what for that universal remote? Philips says its $1700 iPronto TSi6400 does much more than control all your audio, video, and home theater devices. It uses a high-resolution 6.4-inch touch-screen LCD and also wirelessly controls lighting, security cameras, home networks, climate control, and other IR/RF/ethernet home applications. You can look up TV programs on its electronic program guide, access the Internet and send e-mail over a Wi-Fi wireless network, listen to MP3s, and play media recorded on MMC/SD cards. Still, $1700? --Ramon G. McLeod

Wear gloves when you handle that! All these shiny silver boxes--from MP3 players to media centers--are lovely, but are such fingerprint-prone surfaces really best for such devices? And the mirrored surface presents another odd circumstance: Do you really enjoy seeing a (perhaps smudged) reflection of yourself in your DVD player? --Melissa Perenson

CES Picks and Pans: Heady Stuff

I'll take that call after all: When you're listening to your favorite tunes, there's nothing worse than having to rip off your headphones when you suddenly realize your cell phone is ringing. Enter the $30 Skullcandy Portable Link, a set of headphones with two plugs: one for your music player (or other audio device) and the other for most major brand cell phones (a model for desktop phones costs another $10). When your phone rings, you hear it over your music. And with your phone on auto-answer, you simply start talking--the caller won't hear your music. --Tracey Capen and Frank Thorsberg

Noisebuster: Tired of turning up the volume on your headphones to hear music over the hum of an airplane engine or the dull roar of a noisy office? Don't crank it up: Cancel it out. Sennheiser's $149 PXC 250 headphones use mini-microphones and NoiseGuard technology to cancel annoying low-end noises. I tried the headphones--shipping in February--on the show floor and was amazed at how well they erased the chatter of my fellow attendees. Similar products cost twice the price. --Tom Mainelli

Headset hoopla: Many contraptions on the show floor hung on heads--and in ears. Examples are Logitech's $25 Internet Chat Headset with various color plates and behind-the-head band; Jabra's $40 ProBoom--an earpiece for cell phones that you can attach to your ear using an ear wrap or put in your ear using Jabra's EarGel covers; and UmeVoice's TheBoom, an earboom that deflects background noise so that only your voice gets center stage when you're chatting on your cell phone. --Aoife McEvoy

Yet another cool set of headphones: I've wanted a surround-sound system for a long time, but I don't want lots of speakers everywhere. Dolby Laboratories claims its Dolby Headphone technology plays surround sound on a standard set of headphones. The frightening thing is, it seems to work: On demos of both hardware and software products using the technology, you could hear the Orcs marching behind you on the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer. --Richard Baguley

Gadgets a Go-Go

A PDA that knows where it's at: I hate getting lost and I love music. Garmin's Palm OS 5-based IQue 3600 PDA with built-in GPS and MP3 capabilities is a nearly perfect travel tool for me. Garmin's software provides maps that show your location, plus voice directions to get you where you're going. --Tracey Capen

Sweatin' with your PDA: The only kind of run some of us want to take is all downhill. With the new Star Trac Pro Elite Treadmill, you can program just the workout you want on your Palm OS-based PDA, then beam the program onto a treadmill using infrared waves. Once you're done, the treadmill beams a record--how far you ran, calories you burned--back to your PDA. No word on what you do once your Clie smells like your gym socks. --Ed Albro

User-friendly digital photo frame: The MemoryFrame MF570 digital photo display from Pacific Digital runs a slide show of up to 55 photos in a 5.6-inch active matrix TFT LCD inside a 5-by-7-inch frame. Best, you load photos to the frame via a USB cable--no memory cards and no subscription services to get photos off a Web site. You can load it with pictures and give it to grandma and granddad. --Ramon G. McLeod

Bite-size video: The Panasonic SV-AV30 is a palm-size wonder that snaps photos, records video, records audio, and plays both audio and video. Due in April, the $399 unit has a 64MB SD memory card, a 2-inch LCD capable of 15 frames per second (a bit slow for video), and a docking station to transfer video from a VCR. I'm guessing you can't fit many Buffy episodes on 64MB, but I'll make do! --Tom Mainelli

Teeny-weeny audio players: Sonicblue showed prototypes of two super-small hard disk portable audio players. The smallest--the $299 "Slate"--measures 3.2 inches by 2.4 inches and barely half an inch thick, yet houses a 1.5GB hard drive. Even cooler: a model code-named Pearl that, while thicker, has a nifty curved design, a 1.8-by-1-inch LCD, USB 2.0, and a five-way joystick to navigate menu options. It's expected to ship next fall for $399. --Melissa Perenson

Tiny rules: Everywhere are music and photography devices based on USB storage devices. Cases in point: Portable Audio and Portable Photo Keyrings from Philips; USB storage-based cameras from Argus; and the ThumbDrive products, a camera and MP3 player, from Trek. --Anne B. McDonald

Let's get flexible: Speaking of USB storage devices, am I the only one who dislikes that they stick out so rigidly from the USB port on a laptop? That's why I love the FlexUSB from Ideative. Just plug your USB 1.1 or 2.0 storage thingy or cable into the connector, and you can rotate them up, down, and all around--in short, out of the way. --Anne B. McDonald

Sticky solution: It's not a magnet, not an adhesive. No tape anywhere. But the $7 Jelly Sticky Pad from American Covers is definitely a gripping idea. It looks like a miniature mouse pad, but is meant to hold a cell phone or sunglasses to your car's dashboard. It conforms to the dashboard's contours--no bolts, screws, or tape to hold it in place. It's washable, removable, and reusable, and it doesn't leave any sticky goo behind when you peel it off. --Frank Thorsberg

Hassle-free scratch protection for CDs and DVDs: D_Skin is like plastic armor for your CDs and DVDs--and you don't have to take it off when you pop them in the PC or player. The transparent polycarbonate shield keeps your optical media scratch- and dust-proof. The covers snap on with a patented "lip lock" seal and stay in place while the disc is in use. The company says the covers are so thin (.005 inches) that data can easily be read right through them without any skips or distortion. --Frank Thorsberg

For absent-minded possessors: The ISpot transmitter from Digital Innovations provides 12 programmable buttons you can set to represent items in your home or office. Press the button, and you'll hear a beep on the corresponding item's fob--which acts as a keychain or attaches to a device using double-faced tape. The unit runs on two AAA batteries and has about a 30-foot range. --Melissa Perenson

CES Picks and Pans: PC Stuff, Too

Ultra-light, with everything: Finally, a notebook that doesn't break your back but doesn't make you compromise. Sony is showing the Vaio PCG-V505, which has 1.8-GHz Pentium 4-M power, 512MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, 12.1-inch screen, and a built-in DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive in a package weighing just 4.3 pounds with about the same dimensions as previous 505s. Systems cost $1900; configure it for wireless 802.11b for $100 more. Time to travel. --Anush Yegyazarian

A keyboard that glows in the dark: If you sit in front of your PC in dimly lit environments or just prefer the lights off, Auravision's $100 EluminX brightens your typing or your gaming habits. The skinny, flat keyboard lights up in a dark environment; the less light, the greater the glow. For $100 you have a choice of two incandescent colors: aquamarine or sapphire blue (the keyboard casing comes in black and off-white). --Aoife McEvoy

Virtually there: $33 million is a nice chunk of change, but is it enough to convince people to subscribe to an online virtual world for live chat and gaming? The success of Electronic Arts' Sims Online plus the immense popularity of massive multiplayer games and instant messaging have convinced There (and its big-name backers) to give it a shot. The avatar-based online community launches this summer, but you can check out the public beta now. --Ramon G. McLeod

Tower of power: I don't usually wax enthusiastic about power supplies, but JDI Technologies has something in its GoldX PowerCore System. It features a 56-watt power supply in the $40 base unit and USB, USB broadband, ethernet, and FireWire adapters in separately available modules (prices range from $25 to $70). The idea is both to save space and upgrade your power supply easily when your technology changes. --Anne B. McDonald

More Show Floor Scenes

Best name for a weird product: One booth demo'ing a mouse with a built-in FM radio: the MouseCaster. --Harry McCracken

Most oddball innovation: Ribbit TV, an allegedly educational television monitor for kids--shaped like a giant frog. --Harry McCracken

Strangest phone feature: Samsung Telecom showing off a concept wireless phone with a built-in mirror, handy for touching up one's makeup--giving new definition to the phrase "compact phone." --Harry McCracken

Most omnipresent product category: The second floor of the South Hall, stuffed with more cell-phone faceplate companies than you could shake a stick at, selling everything from Betty Boop commemorative models to ones that flash like strobe lights. --Harry McCracken

Drive, they said: Based on square footage of show space and noise, you'd think car stereo is the hottest electronic ticket in the new year. An entire hall is filled with tricked-out cars, roadsters, and trucks with gigantic speakers and amplifiers pulling thousands of watts. In-dash DVD players with 6-to-8-inch flat-panel displays are standard equipment. But as an aging baby boomer and former owner of several vintage Volkswagen buses, my top pick is a custom '60s microbus. --Tracey Capen

Your home shouldn't be Microsoft's castle: If Sony and Microsoft have their way, all our homes will be equipped exclusively with their products. In a rather frightening Microsoft stand, PR types pretend to be family members showing how every room can benefit from Microsoft products (one woman pretended to be a pre-teen, but most definitely wasn't). Personally, I prefer a house with products that work together from lots of companies. --Richard Baguley

Connect me: A central theme this year is connectivity between your home theater and PC. Sony's RoomLink, HP's Digital Media Receiver, and Pioneer's high-end DigitaLibrary all offer ways to get your pictures and music--and sometimes video and Internet-streamed content--where you want it, by ethernet or wireless transmission. Prices and features vary, but all these products deliver one key feature: easy-to-use interfaces so you can quickly navigate content and get on with enjoying it. --Anush Yegyazarian