Xoom tablet takes top honors at CES

By Amanda Finnegan

Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 | 1:02 p.m.

Motorola’s Xoom tablet picked up the Best in Show award Saturday morning during the CNET Best of CES 2011 awards at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The award winners were nominated in 12 categories: car tech; digital imaging; design; gaming; home theater; PCs and laptops; prototypes; smartphones; software, services and apps; storage and networking; tablets, and TVs.

In addition to those categories, nominees had the chance to pick up Best in Show — the top award — and the People’s Voice Award, which was chosen by voters on CNET.com.

Judged by a panel of CNET editors, the CNET Best of CES awards are the official awards of the trade show. The Best in Show award is given by CNET editors for the best product across the 12 categories.

Best in Show

Motorola Xoom

The Xoom was announced at Thursday morning’s keynote address as the first tablet to run on Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb. Among other specs, the Xoom will run Adobe Flash, feature two cameras (one for video conferencing and one for HD video) and play video at full HD 1080p. The Xoom will launch with 3G in February and will upgrade to 4G later in the year.

Read a product review here.

Watch a product demo here.

People’s Voice

Razer Switchblade

The Switchblade makes the PC gaming experience portable, Razer says. The gaming laptop is Intel Atom-based, has a touch screen and a keyboard that adjusts its configuration and layout as gamers play. Price has not been announced.

Read a product review here.

Watch a product review here.

Car tech

Toyota Entune

Drivers can download Entune to their smart phone and access a variety of in-car applications from their phone, such as Bing, Pandora, Open Table and MovieTickets.com. The applications are then controlled by using the touch screen of voice commands. Entune will be available in select models next year.

Read a product review here.

Design

Casio Tryx

The Casio Tryx looks like any digital camera at first glance, but its 3-inch LCD high-resolution, touch screen flips out and can pivot 360 degrees, while the screen itself cane rotate 270 degrees. In addition, the Tryx can take full HD video. The camera will be on the market in April for $250.

Watch a product demo here.

Read a product review here.

Digital Imagining

Sony HDR-PJ series

This Sony Handycam comes with a projector built right into the body. The projector can show an image up to 60 inches. The cameras includes a 12X zoom lens, a built-in GPS receiver for geo-tagging and a 3-inch LCD screen.

Read a product review here.

Gaming

Nintendo 3DS

The Nintendo 3DS is the company’s first venture into 3-D. The portable system has all the features of the traditional DS, but with glasses-free 3-D gaming.

Watch a product demo here.

Home Theater

Samsung BD-D7000

The Samsung BD-D7000 Blu-Ray player features an ultra slim design. It’s 3D compatible, WiFi enabled and has access to Samsung Apps like Netflix, Hulu and Pandora. Samsung said to expect the BD-D7000 sometime in the first part of this year.

Watch a product demo here.

Read a product review here.

PCs and Laptops

Intel’s Sandy Bridge

Intel’s Sandy Bridge chip was announced this week before the start of CES. Intel says the chips include more energy-efficient performance and improved 3D and graphics performance. The company says the chips will begin to ship Jan. 9.

Read a product review here.

Prototypes

Toshiba’s glasses-free 3-D

Users will no longer need those annoying glasses when using Toshiba’s glasses-free 3-D laptop prototype. Toshiba says the laptop’s Qosmio’s webcam used eye-tracking software tracks eye location to tweak and deliver 3-D games and video. Its unknown when the laptop will actually make it to the market.

Read a product review here.

Smartphones

Motorola Atrix 4G

The Motorola Atrix 4G will feature a 4-inch touchscreen, dual 1GHz processors, has 16GB of internal memory and can use microSD cards up to 32GB. There’s also a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, a camcorder with 720p video capture and HD video playback.

Read a product review here.

Tablets

Motorola Xoom

Winner of the Best in Show award, the Xoom will run Adobe Flash, feature two cameras (one for video conferencing and one for HD video) and play video at full HD 1080p. The Xoom will launch with 3G in February and will upgrade to 4G later in the year.

Read a product review here.

Software, services and apps

RealNetwork’s Unifi

Unifi is RealNetwork’s attempt to create a cloud that combines your photos, music, and video files from across multiple devices and online service. All devices will be able to act as remotes for the library and you can upload images as well. The first 2GB of storage will be free and the library can store up to 100GB. Apps for Blackberry and Windows 7 are expected to be available later this year.

Watch a product demo here.

Read a product review here.

Storage and networking

iOSafe Rugged Portable

iOSafe is known for its disaster-proof devices and while it isn’t meant to be bullet proof, the Rugged Portable is meant to withstand extreme situations. The Rugged Portable is available in both aluminum and titanium versions. The device comes in versions with up to 1 TB of storage.

Watch a product demo here.

TVs

Vizio XVT3D6SP series

The Vizio XVT3D6SP series is the company’s line of TVs with the Google TV platform. Users can browse all of their favorite apps like Pandora and YouTube through the TVs WiFi connection. The TV will ship in both a 47-inch and 55-inch version and is also 3-D compatible.

Read a product review here.