CES 2006 Mobile Phone Preview
Happy New Year! And it will be for mobile phone lovers, because despite the long winter nights and the miserableness of January and February (I live in the UK - trust me “miserable” is the perfect word for January and February over here!), CES 2006 is just around the corner. CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is the annual gizmo trade fest where all the key players make huge announcements on forthcoming products.
Not only will we see some amazing new products, we should also get an idea of what the major device manufacturers are cooking up for the coming year. My guess: expect to see a lot of fuss on Mobile TV, some buzz about VoIP and cellphones, and WiFi everywhere. But I’m not the only one guessing. The show runs from January 5 - 8 2006, but there are already many rumours doing the rounds at the moment, so read on if you want a sneak preview of CES 2006.
Previewing Mobile Phone technologies on show at CES 2006
CNET’s CES 2006 Preview
CNET have previewed CES2006, and expect to see more on 3G (no kidding!), MP3 phones (ok…), Bluetooth (umm…), VoIP, Push email, and better designs. Er, and that’s it! As previews and guesses go, this isn’t exactly stretching the imagination!
Technology Pundit’s Tim Bajarin’s CES 2006 Preview
Respected tech pundit Tim Bajarin previews the whole of CES 2006, not just the mobile phone technologies we can expect. As far as mobile tech goes, though, he expects to see higher pixel camera phones and new form factors, many Mobile TV products, and much better displays. Tim says:
“As cell phones and smart phones are used to display more content such as digital images, games, TV content and Web Browsing, the sharpness and fast refresh rate of these screens become important. We should see some good phones this year with OLED screens that, in my opinion, represent the future displays for all cell phones since they deliver a much brighter and sharper image and use less power then today’s screens.”
PC Mag’s CES 2006 Preview
PC Mag expect the new Palm Treo 700W to be the star of CES 2006 (Verizon are already promoting it), along with Motorola’s V3i, a RAZR with iTunes. PC Mag also expect to see Mobile TV feature heavily, with Philips making a big announcement for Europe, and Verizon making noises with its own system for the US. They also expect Cingular to announce its new HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access - souped up super-fast 3G) broadband network. Other manufacturers will also make HSDPA announcements, with Samsung in particular showing off a new HSDPA protoype phone, which will be developed specifically for Vodafone. Vodafone’s new service should be capable of download speeds of 425kbps.
MobileWhack’s CES 2006 Preview
MobileWhack also predict the Treo 700W to be big at CES 2006, and to go head to head with Motorola’s Q smartphone. They also write about a rumour that Nokia is about to announce a smartphone that will “blow everyone away”, and introduce a mobile phone that has all the features of the N-Gage (though Nokia have already announced they were going to do this when they killed the N-Gage).
Conclusion
CES 2006 promises to be a mobile phone tech fest to keep you going for months. And as well as all the juicy mobile phone gossip, I’ll also include glorious details and pics of Vegas, which truly is one of the wonders of the modern world! Full details of CES 2006 will be posted here at MobileMentalism, so a heavy week of blogging ensues. Happy New Year all!
