The ASUS EeePad EP121 showcased at the CES 2011

The ASUS EeePad EP121 showcased at the CES 2011 represents a new definition in power, portability, and performance in a unique pad design that also works as notebook with the trend setting dual dock.

2011 INTERNATIONAL CES WOWS WORLD WITH INNOVATION AND OPTIMISM

2011 INTERNATIONAL CES WOWS WORLD WITH INNOVATION AND OPTIMISM

Record-breaking 30,000 Overseas Visitors Experience World's Largest Consumer Technology Tradeshow

Arlington, Virginia - 1/9/2011

More than 2,700 technology companies across global industries dazzled attendees at the 2011 International CES^®, with the ground-breaking event energizing the technology world. The 2011 CES set several new records, including 30,000 international attendees and 22 top CEOs participating in keynotes. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)^®, the 2011 CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, concluded today in Las Vegas.
"The 2011 International CES was a phenomenal worldwide event that spanned global industries including technology, automotive and entertainment markets," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. "This global technology gathering featured more innovation, more news, more social media buzz and more international attendance than any other show in CES history."
Preliminary attendance figures indicate more than 140,000 industry professionals attended the 2011 International CES. More than 30,000 attendees came from outside the United States, with the show attracting more than 80 international delegations. CEA conducts an independent audit of attendance at the International CES and final verified figures will be available in the spring.
Major technology trends emerged from the CES show floor including the launch of more than 80 tablets, wireless 4G LTE, connected TV technologies, smart appliances – featured for the first time in show history – and electric vehicles. Ford’s Alan Mulally unveiled the company’s first electric car at the 2011 International CES with its Ford Focus Electric.
The 2011 CES brought top CEOs to the CES stage including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, Audi's Rupert Stadler, Samsung's Boo-Keun Yoon, Ford's Alan Mulally, Netflix's Reed Hastings, Cisco's John Chambers, Xerox's Ursula Burns and GE's Jeffrey Immelt. These executives were joined onstage by leaders spanning various industries including Comcast's Brian Roberts, Time Warner Cable's Glenn Britt, Dreamworks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg and Hulu's Jason Kilar. The 2011 International CES conference program consisted of 250 sessions featuring 900 speakers.
As the relationship between technology and the content community grows in significance, the 2011 CES featured a new program, Entertainment Matters, designed for the Hollywood community. As part of the program, the 2011 CES featured the first-ever Entertainment Matters keynote panel with leaders from Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Akamai Technologies, Interpublic Group and WPP.  
The 2011 International CES featured government leaders from the U.S. and around the world including United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, along with Commissioners Meredith Attwell Baker, Mignon Clyburn and Robert M. McDowell.
The 2011 CES created phenomenal buzz in the social media world with more than 158,000 CES-related tweets since Monday, January 3, and more than 11,000 page views on CEA's Digital Dialogue blog.
For more news on the 2011 International CES, visit CESweb.org. The International CES will return to Las Vegas next January 10-13, 2012.

Review of Nokia E5!!

Nokia E5 review

The new Eseries phone, Nokia E5 is a mid-range Symbian device ideally suited for all your business needs. The BlackBerry-eque smartphone is now available at a price point of Rs.12,699 in India. The phone is designed to connect you seamlessly to the people in your professional and personal lives through instant messaging, email and your favourite online social networks.

Nokia's E5 is a handset designed to bridge the gap between what we want from a phone when we are at work and what we want from a phone when we aren't. It has a mini QWERTY keyboard which can come in handy in both scenarios, and a lot of other features that are dual purpose too.

First, it comes equipped with loads of social networking and email features. The QWERTY-enabled smartphone features a 5 megapixel camera, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Nokia E5 provides direct access to corporate email through Mail for Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveler.

The build is reasonably good with plastic all round except for a metal backplate which helps the handset feel solid and ought to mean it can withstand a fair few knocks and bumps.

The Nokia E5ss key feature, as far as that ‘dual use mode' goes, is that you can switch between two home screen designs with the merest hold of a button. The idea is that you can set up one wallpaper and set of shortcuts for staid old business use, and another more funky set for when you are let loose.

It is not a new idea for Nokia, but it works really well, and we like it. However, in these days of multiple home screened handsets where you can go mad with widgets to create home, work, holiday, and other dedicated screens, it might feel a bit lacking to some people.

The Nokia E5 doesn't have a touchscreen, instead sporting a 2.36-inch display with just 320x240 pixels on offer. You can cram a surprising amount of information into the screen including photo contacts, application shortcuts, email and calendar notifications, and lots more. There are several different screen arrangements to choose between and the whole thing is quite flexible.

However, the screen doesn't rotate when you turn the Nokia E5 in your hand, and this along with its small size makes it less than ideal for web browsing.

At least the * and # keys can be used for quick zooming – and you’ll need them because practically no page is readable when it first loads. Use the 8 key for a page overview and you can mooch around using the D-pad to find the area you want to zoom into, which is handy.

The presence of Wi-Fi is a real boon and it sits alongside the HSDPA support to make this a good handset for data communications. The Wi-Fi sniffer that you can place on the main screen is a plus point too. This will alert you when you are in the presence of a network, and you can hop onto it for web browsing or whatever else you fancy pretty easily.

The QWERTY keyboard is well made and easy to use at a fair old speed. You may find that if you’ve larger hands it is a bit of a squeeze to use comfortably, but that can be said of all mini QWERTY keyboards like this.

We do like the @ key next to the space bar, which makes life easy when you are typing out email addresses. And we also like that holding down the space bar turns the camera light on and off so it can double up as a torch.

Above the keyboard there is the a familiar bank of buttons – Call, End, two softkeys, a D-pad and a couple of shortcut buttons – Home and Messaging.

They are all easy enough to find and hit –Nokia has designed this area of the Nokia E5 with plenty of space. And if you long press the messaging button you go right into the SMS creation screen, while long pressing on the Home button gives you a quick way to switch between open apps.

There's a bit of social networking integration in that the Nokia E5 can pick up photos for your contacts from Facebook. But it won't draw down contacts themselves from Facebook, or from Gmail come to that.

Twitter fans may also be miffed that there's no Twitter app on board. Just a link, hidden away in the Apps folder, that takes you to the Twitter mobile web site. It is better than nothing, we suppose.

A-GPS is built in and you can use Ovi Maps for navigation. There's a 5 megpixel camera too, with flash, a panorama mode, and a potentially useful sequence shooting mode that has a range of settings that go down to taking one phone every half hour. Potential time-lapse fans might find that fun to try.

However images weren’t the best we've ever seen being rather washed out and lacklustre. The panorama mode, too, came up with very thin, wide photos that aren't really all that useful when you transfer them to a computer.

Music playback benefits from a top mounted 3.5mm headset jack, equaliser and FM radio, but you've only got 256MB of built in memory to fill with tunes, so you'll probably need to use a microSD card to add more storage. The handset offers GSM talk time of 13 hours.

Overall we quite like the Symbian S60 toting Nokia E5. If you aren't a fan of touchscreens and want a messaging friendly handset it is worth a try. The dual home screens system works really well too. But steer clear if you are a regular mobile web user. And above all, the new Nokia E5 is offered at an affordable price tag in India.

Nokia E5 info

Typical price: Rs. 12,699

Pros:
Good QWERTY keyboard
Flexible dual home screen arrangement
Top mounted 3.5mm headset slot
Camera flash doubles up as a torch

Cons:
Screen is small and not suitable for web browsing
Camera is disappointing
Not much on board memory

Verdict: The Nokia E5 offers two home screens for use at work and at play, and has a good range of features for both situations.

Micromax gets Sebi nod for public offering

Market regulator Sebi has given nod to home-grown mobile handset maker Micromax to sell 10 per cent stake through an initial public offer.
According to Sebi data, the company had filed draft red herring prospectus on September 29 last year and was given the market regulator's approval on January 14 this year.
The company will be offering 2.15 crore shares and it may consider a discount of 10 per cent on the IPO issue price for retail investors.
The Delhi-based mobile handset maker may also consider participation by anchor investors.
The firm is raising funds for establishment of a new handset manufacturing plant, enhancement of the Micromax brand and investment in acquisitions and other strategic initiatives, and for general corporate purposes, it said in DRHP.
JM Financial, Citigroup, Edelweiss and Nomura are the book running lead managers for the issue.

 

Pictures of the WP7 Asus E600

Asus E600  Leaked 

According to previous leaks the Asus E600 is supposed to pack a 4-inch WVGA display, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash plus a 720p capable camcorder and all-round connectivity. We guess it will be based on a 1GHz platform (probably Snapdragon) as is a part of the Microsoft WP7 requirements.

There is no information on the Asus E600 market availability or possible pricing just yet.