CES 2010 – Day 1 Round-up

Day 1 is over and there were lots of interesting announcements today!

Gear
Tegra 2 (Anandtech) – my predictions were right for the dual-core A9 CPU, though I was expecting a little more graphics performance
Ford Sync 4.0 (Engadget)
Palm Pre/Pixi Pro 16GB for Verizon Jan 25 (Engadget)
Intel Wireless Video – Laptop to TV (Anandtech) - which he was right to call the coolest thing at CES
Alienware M11X Laptop (Engadget) – I give Dell/Alienware huge props for being able to stick a Nvidia GT335M in that small of a case

Thoughts
The Tegra 2 is going to be great, assuming they can land some design wins. It was announced that the Boxee Box is going to be Tegra 2 powered, which is interesting because the Boxee Box will end up having very little power consumption. Its a great fit for cars, portable media devices, slates and tablets. I wish Nvidia well, they could use it right now.

The large number of new LED LCD TVs is great, and the key to the ultra-thin design isn’t thickness, rather the reduction in weight, materials and shipping costs (how many can you fit into a cargo container). What used to be a ton of raw materials, bolts, mounting kits and a 100 lb. LCD TV is now two screws and a 8 lb. LED LCD TV.

The Ford Sync 4.0 in-car system is a mixed bag…

• The Good: Sync API, leveraging existing app stores and not making your own, LCDs in the dashboard area next to the speedometer
• The Bad: Virtualizing just about every control the driver might want to use while driving onto a touch screen without any physical feedback
• The Ugly: Their UI designers, seriously Ford, just copy the iPhone UI design patterns and be done with it

Virtualizing all the controls onto a touch screen is an awful idea – its taking the dynamic user interface several steps too far. If I want to turn up or down the heater or AC in my car, I know exactly where the physical knob is to turn it and what buttons to push. On a touch screen with no physical feedback, I’m stuck glancing over at the screen to see if I’m on the right screen, and if my finger is in the right place, while I can turn the heat up or down in my car without looking and keeping my eyes on the road the entire time. And having to control this through a menu tree through the steering wheel inputs its too much time to change something like climate control (Menu 1 > Menu 2 > Menu 3 > Change temperature).

All I want Ford to do is fix the damn iPhone OS 3.0 issues with the current Sync system – the forever index problem and the auto-switch to bluetooth audio problem.