The Best of IFA 2009

Besides Berlin being an experience all by its lonesome, this was their busiest time of the year with the IFA, one of the world’s largest consumer electronics expos of the year. In the cold rain or warm sunshine the event reigned on through a series of humongous halls, events, press conferences, product launches and showcases and even a few unsightly and tacky exhibits. It was all there, a techie’s dream – from home appliances to Digital Photo Frames, IFA had all of the big wigs in the electronics industry showing off their stuff and although I would have loved to cover everything (hope you were following the tweets on Tech2eets) it was an almost impossible task with a serious lack of time.

Nevertheless, with regard to all that I did see, here’s a quick recap of the event from my perspective of what technology is going to get the most amount of attention.

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Samsung’s Booth

Samsung was the fairest one of them all, and not just because the booth was bright in white but the displays were a little more entertaining as compared to some of the others we witnessed. With the absolutely brilliant use of over 100 LCD TVs to make up the display they called the Tree of Light they stole the show. The theme was Digital Humanism where human interactivity with technology gets more comfortable. Their individual displays were also rather innovative in terms of explaining certain concepts to even the lay tech enthusiast ambling through the booth. A couple of the products that really managed to excel in terms of concept and of course the fact they would soon be available here include -

Samsung’s ST550 and ST1000 Digicams
The ST550 is quite unique with its Dual LCD feature. The rear has a large 3.5-inch touchscreen and right beside the lens in front is a 1.5-inch LCD that also has face tracking capabilities as well as a ‘Children Mode’ that displays funny cartoon images that should keep a child entertained enough for you to take a picture. I’m not sure how effective it really is as the only one it seemed to entertain was me. Then again, that just might indicate it works just fine. The ST550 12.2MP digicam also has 4.6X optical zoom as well as a Smart Gesture enabled UI. Other features include – Dual Image Stabilization, Video recording in HD (1280 x 720p, 30fps), facial recognition that also allows you to search by face in your folder storage and my personal favorite – One Touch Shooting so you can manually focus on any part of the frame by simply tapping it with your finger.

The second digicam is Samsung’s very connectivity friendly ST1000. Sure you’ll find all of this stuff and a mobile handset in Samsung’s soon to hit our stores, 12MP camera phone, Pixon12, but a digicam by itself is definitely going to get you better pictures. This baby also has a 12.2MP lens as well as a 3.5-inch touchscreen but is loaded with GPS for geotagging images with location data, Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 2.0.

The ST550 should be available soon for about Rs. 25,000 and the ST1000, that’s also on its way should be priced at about Rs. 27,000.

Samsung Eco Phones

What’s truly inspiring are the Eco friendly handsets that Samsung intends to bring to our shores. We’ve already seen the Solar Guru with its solar panel and now we can expect to see a few more handsets that should be making their way here soon. But aside from just having a solar panel for recharging the battery, these handsets are also built with recycled materials like plastic water bottles etc. One of the handsets in question is the Blue Earth GT-S7550 which is a rather sleek touchscreen device sporting a solar panel at the rear. Also on display was the QWERTY slider, the Reclaim SPH-M560 and the Lydford GT-S5500E, a more contemporary slider. That’s just what we need right now, eco-friendly technology. Go green!

3D TV

The wave of the not so distant future is 3D TV. Gone are the days of calling it an idiot box for two reasons, it’s no longer shaped like a box (very important) and secondly a TV that’s capable of so much more than jut allowing one to watch Television CANNOT be referred to as an ‘idiot’. With the age of 3D upon us, it was only a matter of time before television was also designed for that format. Samsung also had a couple of previews showcased with their 3D vision TVs and formats. The traditional format involved the use of 3D spectacles which weren’t too bad except for those with spectacles, so Samsung has been working on a prototype 3D TV experience that doesn’t even need a pair of glasses. All that it requires is for you to stay 3 meters away and that’s that. It’s a great concept but a little way off from being perfected.

LG 3mm display

So slim TVs are in. What’s brilliant are the advances that technology has taken in the TV industry. LCD TVs have given way to LED TVs which may be super slim and light weight with AMOLED displays that bring colors to life. But not only are the TVs getting better colors they’re also becoming slimmer and slimmer and slimmer and slimmer… I could go on. Take LG’s almost paper thing Object AMOLED TV that’s 15-inches but just and I mean JUST 3mm in depth. Is that awesome technology or what?
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iPhone gaming wheel

A few weeks ago I was one of those guys who thought that some of the iPhone accessories were getting a little bit over the top including the gaming wheel. At IFA though I had an opportunity to test a few of the wheels and they were way better than what I conceptualized. They’re light weight and comfortable to use and actually adds a certain realism to the games. The company that showcased the devices, Hama, had a range of devices in a variety of designs and sizes. However, in all honesty not all the designs were aesthetically designed in my opinion but they are nevertheless plenty of fun to use.

Sonim Rugged Handsets

I’ve always wanted to see first hand what the Sonim handsets were like and IFA gave me just that opportunity. Sonim’s rather small but not unimpressive stall showcased a couple of their hardcore handsets stuck inside the sand inside a fish tank. Talk about innovative displays, this one was rather fishy though (pardon the pun). Sonim’s handsets are tried and tested to withstand quite a lot of “activities” and although I wasn’t allowed to test it they way I did the Samsung Marine, but they nevertheless looked quite sturdy as they were, swimming with the fishes.

Nokia X6

Nokia’s booth at IFA was rather unimpressive as well, then again Nokia World that was held a few days earlier, that we were NOT invited to, would have been far more of an entertainer as compared to this I’m sure. It was quite a disappointment to find that the N900 was not on display as I was quite eager to see what all the fuss was about. I did however find the X6 XpressMusic touchscreen handset that is every bit as cool and sexy as the pictures. Although the S60 touchscreen UI is essentially the same as even the 5800’s, the shape and overall design of the handset made it easy to handle and awfully good to look at. Navigation was seamless even on this display piece and I can’t wait for it to get here.

Sony PSP Go and PS3 Slim
Like I said Sony went in the completely opposite direction from Samsung with their booth layout draped all black. Imagine if you will, entering Ali Baba’s cave and finding treasures that you’ve only dreamed of. Sony had quite a few treats for the eyes on display including their 3D TV section and the new feature-rich DPFs as well the X-Series PMPs and their Reader which is the rival to the Kindle.

However Sony’s PS3 Slim and PSP Go were on ‘hand’ so to speak and I have to admit I was not honestly sure what to expect from the consoles. From press images and other sources both consoles looked attractive enough but in reality they were quite so-so.

The PS3 slim has a little bulge shaved off from the bottom so it’s flatter than the original and I love the matt finish that prevents any unruly scratches or dust from showing up on an other-wise decent looking device.

The PSP is one of my all time favorite gadgets and I’m particularly fond of my own device which may be heaver and a little bulkier but the aesthetics seem well laid out. The PSP Go is ergonomically sound to an extent. On the whole the sliding display looks good but something about the controls didn’t bode too well with me. Suffice to say, I’m sticking with the old one.

IFA was a great experience and it’s always easier to give you readers a first hand experience of what’s to come and what’s the ‘here and now’ in technology. While we may not be able to get you every single bit of information on every single company we can try to make sure you’re kept well informed and all that’s relevant.