CES 2009 – The battle of thin & light

Pre-guessing a major consumer electronics event can be akin to shooting in the dark but I’m going to take a brief stab at it.

I’ll be jetting off on Tuesday to Las Vegas to begin my coverage of CES for TrustedReviews and I’m beginning to spot a few trends I expect to see built upon in those huge halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). Most notably LED panels in both monitors and TVs, further refinement in the netbook sector and finally the emergence of affordable solid state hard drives (SSDs) for laptops.

The indicators are already out. Last week LG announced the world’s thinnest LED High Definition TV only to see Samsung a few days later claim it will produce a model more than 3x thinner.

In the meantime PQI has joined this we-can’t-keep-our-lips-shut club to proclaim a range of wallet friendly SSDs with capacities up to 128GB. This is more than enough for the average user, especially when combined with the technology’s significant benefits (faster performance, greater durability, silent running, zero heat build up and lower energy requirements).

Then comes the cert: yet another flourish in the sardine-crammed netbook sector. With most manufacturers onto generation three we should find slimmer, more portable and more powerful machines than ever before. Many likely to carry onboard HSDPA along with the ability to playback HD content, making them mini-media centres for one and all.

The common theme in this diverse trio? Thin and light. Essentially CES 2009 looks set to build on technologies we’ve long had (LED backlighting, solid state drives, HSDPA, HDMI, portable laptops) but push them into ever more convenient forms.

TVs will be wall mounted in the future more often than not, our primary PCs will go everywhere with us and our components will be faster, stronger and more efficient than ever before. Heck, even the neck and neck hot tips for the overlapping MacWorld are between an even smaller Mac Mini or a Mac netbook and you know what they say about where Apple goes?!

It’s the battle of thin and light people, get ready to enjoy it…