CES 2007 Wrap Up

The definite feeling from our meetings at CES was that "bigger is better",with every company we talked with (except Corsair) pumping out 1000W+ power supplies. Another popular trend is the move away from PSUsfeaturing multiple rails. As strange as it might sound to some, manycompanies are in fact offering single +12V railed PSUs with anywherefrom 70-95A being pumped through. Cleverpower, one of our favoritecompanies at the show which we feel has a lot of potential, iscurrently ramping up production of 1000W PSUs in both multi-rail andsingle rail configurations.

Another extremely popular trend,although not a new one, is the modular PSU. While these have beenaround for a couple years now, questions about the power quality havereally scared off some. But with everyone from Enermax to Corsairbringing high quality modular power supplies to market, it seems asthough modular may be the way to go. 

Lookforward to DirectX 10 compatible PCI-E video cards. eVGA showed of anextremely impressive collection of cards in every budget range. Moreimportantly, they spent most of our meeting stressing their dedicationto customer service and support.

Whileyou all know Razer as  a maker of gaming mice, we've watched themevolve into a full fledged gaming company, offering mice, keyboards,sound cards, and headphones. The Razer Mako really impressed us withsome super high quality sound aimed towards the audiophiles, but evenfor them it might be a tough sell as a $300 2.1 sound solution with nosurround sound emulation.

Wemet quite a few people at CES, from representatives of variouscompanies we've never seen in person to folks from other review sitesand news sources. I have to say that for the most part we are lucky tobe part of such a great community. The crew from PCApex and DragonModZ left a great impression on us, as they were definitely having a blast wandering the show floor. We also ran into Nate from Legit Reviews and the guys from Tech Gage. Make sure you check out their reviews and coverage of CES. 

Nowthat I've touched on some stuff that impressed me, I have to say CES2007 overall was a disappointment. I live here in Vegas,and have attended the CES for the previous 3 years. Having said that,the crowds were noticeably smaller this year. In my opinion (and it'sjust that, my opinion).....
1. Las Vegas is changing.......Goneare the sweet deals that make coming to Vegas a great getaway. No morecheap rooms, great amenities, free stuff, and honestly, gone is a lotof the fun. From $25 parking lots, jacked up hotel prices, long walks,and outlandish prices on everything from water to food, it just wasn'tas entertaining as years past.

2. The Show itself.....Poorlylaid out, with a lot of rude and pushy people. Security and guestrelations people that were either poorly informed or simply didn'tcare, CES has seemingly outgrown itself. Most vendors we dealt withdidn't even have exhibits on the show floor, instead opting for suitesat posh hotels like the Bellagio and Wynn.
 
3. Vendors.....Therewas nothing really new or exciting to be seen. Sure there was WindowsVista, huge booths for AMD and INTEL, DirectX 10, and some big TVs, butseriously, there was a whole wing dedicated to incredibly silly carswith LCD screens implanted in the bumpers (if you looked at one car,with the exception of the paint job, they were all the same). Manycompanies didn't even bring new products to the show, instead wantingto discuss the next year and stuff they released 3-4 months ago.

Ipersonally blame a lot of the issues on Las Vegas, .but that's anotherstory. Needless to say, the 2007 CES wasn't really anything special,which is really sad, as this show and city have so much potential to besomething special.