The 42nd annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which drew more than 100,000 exhibitors, press, and visitors, can be largely considered as a success, even with the economic downturn that had initially threatened show's successful turn out. Although the overall exhibitor and attendee numbers were predicted to be down from the previous years, many buzz were yielded as manufacturers unveiled their latest cutting edge gadgets and technologies for 2009 and beyond.

In this series of column, I went over some of the new products unveiled at CES 2009 at the exhibit and also through the press events. In this year's CES, the keywords that manufacturers brought are Netbook, 3D TV, Internet in all places, and Wireless. Let's first take a look at Sony booth and see how these keywords connect with their newly unveiled products.

1. SONY

First impression of Sony booth at CES2009 was that one can feel how much effects the marketing group put in to demonstrate their new products.

First, we looked at small notebook category from Sony and much anticipated Sony Vaio P series. At the press event when unveiling new products to Press members, Sony Executive could not emphasize more in the fact that their Vaio P series is not in the Netbook category. VGN-P500 Series incorporate 8-inch ultrawide LED Backlit XGBRITE-ECO LCD Display (1600x768) along with integrated 3G Wireless Mobile Broadband, GPS and webcam, and 2GB RAM. Suggested retail price of this P series is known to be more than US$900.

Second, we move to 3D TV. Sony was one of several companies that have demonstrated 3D Display Technology at CES 2009. At the press event, Sony, however, did not cover broad spectrum of 3D plans for the company, but they are partnering with Real D in development for 3D TV and 3D contents as press members were given REAL D glasses to watch short Gran Turismo 3D demo at the Sony booth. Also, at the Keynote session for Sony's global Chairman and CEO, Sir Howard Stringer with Actor Tom Hanks tried on the Prototype 3D glasses that can display on a small size film while looking at exterior side.

Thirdly, Sony announced a new series of energy efficient TVs that categorize within the new Eco Line of Bravia TV. The new VE5 series comes with 40, 46 and 52 inch models that utilize Hot Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (HCFL) rather than CCFL that is utilized by most LCDs Backlight. Sony added that the new product utilizing HCFL will be saving up to 40% of energy consumption. Also, Sony exhibited last year's CES hit 11.1-inch OLED Set, XEL-1 along with 21-inch and 29-inch prototypes.

The Organic LED TV 21-inch Prototype is equipped with less than 10mm thin display, unparalleled contrast ratio greater than 1,000,000 to 1, Super Top Emission technology for high brightness and color, Color reproduction: over 100% vs. NTSC and Resolution of 1366x768 (WXGA). The XBR9 and Z Series will feature 240Hz refresh rate, while the lower end V series is equipped with 120Hz. Sony added a 32-inch 1080p Model to the XBR lineup with 120Hz unlike other models in that lineup. The prices were not revealed for the Eco line, the new XBR, Z and V series but they are hitting the market the spring 2009.

2. SAMSUNG

At first glance over Samsung booth at CES 2009, I thought Samsung had outdone itself in displaying new products this year. In its entrance, Samsung had spread 117 HDTVs in a wing position to overlook at the entire booth (picture below).

The product that have gathered much attention was Samsung's newly unveiled LED TV, LUXIA which comes in 6000, 7000 and 8000 series utilizing 120Hz to 240Hz have world's thinnest 6.5mm in thickness. Samsung representative mentioned that the product by using LED as primary backlight, save power consumption by 40% compared to using CCFL as BLU. The Luxia 6000 series will have a slim, just over 1-inch thick casing, 4 HDMI ports and an integrated ATSC tuner. The Luxia 7000 will have 4 HDMI ports, 120Hz refresh rate, USB 2.0 and Wireless DLNA streaming support as well as using the Yahoo! Widget platform for video from YouTube, eBay, news and photo sharing. In future, social networking and streaming TV shows & movies are planned to be added into the service as well. The Luxia 8000 series has 240Hz refresh rate, together with Samsung's AutoMotion blur-reduction, a new Touch of Color design with prism-light and chrome edging. The new wall-mount will reduce the gap between the wall and the TV to 0.6-inch.

Samsung also displayed their Prototype OLED TVs and Korea's first Projector phone.

3. LG

This year at CES, LG made some buzz with the company's newly unveiled Watch Phone. At a press event, LG USA President, Michael Ahn showed a working Demo of the product. The product is equipped with touchscreen phone, 3G and Bluetooth capability along with camera that can take both photo and video. Display is made out of TFT, not OLED yet.

LG also unveiled World's Slimmest Direct Type LED TV with internal speaker that has 0.97-inch in thickness. The keywords for this LED TV were Slimness, Local Dimming in Slim LED and Pixel Compensation.

Other unveiled products were wireless transmitter that supports 1080p without the need to compress the signal, which in turn give you the same high quality signal that is coming from the source. Along with other major TV makers, LG displayed Plasma and LCD panels that can show 3D contents. Polarized nonpowered glasses separate the composite left/right image on the screen out to the corresponding images for each eye. This made the video and 3D animation demos being displayed pop out of the screen and provides a lot of depth. This concludes series 1 of Review of CES 2009. We will soon update other makers in upcoming series.