The iPad was set to add a new dimension to portable gaming. Did it succeed? Yes and no. It supported casual gaming to a degree but it was never meant to be a serious competitor for those seeking hardcore gaming. Could the Razer Switchblade Gaming Netbook change this? Again it’s yes and no.

The netbook has a standard 7″ screen, not really big enough for gaming, but the fun starts on the keyboard. Each key has a small OLED screen meaning that you can custom-map the keys to functions on games, and you can also alter the image that the key displays. Ok, that’s pretty cool.

At CES, the developers demonstrated using World of Warcraft. For example, your spells become keys on the keyboard and when you want to use them they’re only one keystroke away.

The screen is also multi-touch allowing for you to interact with your game in a unique way.

No word on pricing yet, but it’s most likely not going to come into mainstream production in its current form as it will be too expensive for the average consumer. However, watch this space, as we might see it incorporated into large gaming laptops – fingers crossed!

Check out the video:

via PopSci

As Geeks everywhere head home from Las Vegas sporting CES swag including Monster Power Outlet’s to Go and about a dozen small USB sticks, the Vegas strip breaths a sign of relief as CES draws to a close. These Geeks know how to party with their laptops, er tablets!

So, when CES 2011 is in the books, who were the winners and who were the losers?

Of course Motorola Mobility provided CES with some of the hottest technology including the Xoom and the Atrix 4G phone/computer in a pocket. On the other hand, Verizon seriously disappointed with its keynote and had to invite other companies including Time Warner Cable, Motorola Mobility and Google to talk about anything innovative.

Another tablet winner, this time from Samsung, excited crowds as the device’s screen slides over the keyboard to look like a tablet but could also be used similar to a netbook. The VibaBody Slimmer, on the other hand, was the most joked upon gadget at the show. Seriously, you just stand on a vibrating platform to lose weight… right.

Another winner was “Honeycomb” which is Google’s upcoming tablet-optimized version of Android which was greeted with enthusiasm unlike the long and boring keynote speeches which provided very little flash substance and talked about larger technology trends.

3D technology without 3D glasses was a hit with the Nintendo 3DS and Toshiba sporting both TVs and Laptops with the new technology. While not flawless, the technology is cool enough to score a win while Casio Tryx just seemed lame. The Tryx is built for young picture-taking revelers and one of the features includes a built-in kickstand. Perhaps I’m just too old!

Finally, the new Intel Sandy Bridge chip is expected to fuel $125B PC sales with refreshes as this new chipset provides that jump in performance that most consumers look for before refreshing their computer inventory. VP Mooly Eden stated that Sandy Bridge “processor graphics is outperforming 40% to 50% of the discrete (stand-alone) graphics chips in the market today.” That’s hot. What’s not? Celebrity driven gadgets are on my naughty list from CES. Do you real want a T-Pain mic or Lady Gaga’s huge Polaroid camera that feels like you’re back in the 70s? I guess Polaroid missed the standard gadget trends of smaller is better.

The new Ford Focus Electric was announced by Ford CEO Alan Mulally in a keynote speech at CES.

With claims that the car will provide better mile-per-gallon equivalent (mpg-e) than the Chevy Volt and a full recharge in three to four hours which is half the time required to recharge the electric Nissan Leaf, the all electric car turned a few heads. According to the EPA, the Volt gets an estimated 93 mpg-e on electricity, 37 mpg on gasoline, and 60 mpg average. The all-electric Leaf gets a 99 mpg-e rating from the EPA.

Microsoft will provide software the the Ford Focus Electric by charging vehicles when electricity rates are at their lowest and has invested in a new version of MyFord Touch driver connect technology to provide electric vehicle pertinent information such as distance to nearest charge point and car’s expected range and has been working with Best Buy’s Geek Squrd to provide service for in-home charging stations.

With a top speed of 84 mpg and “enough range to cover the majority of daily driving habits of Americans”, the car may not be the right choice for all Americans. Additionally, the price has not been released, but the car is expected to hit the market in late 2011.

Green technologies have been hot for the past four to five years at CES, and 2011 was no exception with everything from energy-efficient gadgets to fully electric cars were on display at CES this year. Below are seven Green trends spotted at the 2011 CES show:

The first green trend includes a rebranding of the home automation industry into home energy management. When times are tough for an industry, you need to adapt are focus on the trends. The typical companies where at CES like Control4 and iControl, but startups including GreenWave Reality (started June 2010 by former Cisco execs) and 4Home (which was acquired recently by Motorola) showed products. 4Home will provide connected home service with energy management in a service that will be piloted through Verizon in New Jersey next month.

The second green trend includes electric and connected cards. CEO Alan Mulally gave his third CES keynote and announced the Ford Focus 2012 fully electric car and touted that the Ford connected Sync platform is being used in 3 million Ford cars to date. Off the green topic for a minute, if you have not played with the Sync platform, ask for a demo from a friend – it works well. Additionally, CES provided a dedicated zone to electric vehicles.

The third trend includes energy-efficient gadgets. The standard companies including Belkin presented their smart office/home power gadget lines while startups like Green Plug showed off their smarter consumption technology.

Fourth, since we can’t run our gadgets without energy storage and batteries so energy strorage is the next trend. One of the most interesting items to come out of this trend includes a new gadget Universal Power showed off – a solar-powered portable generator called the Ecotricity ECO1800.

Another hot trend at CES is wireless power. Wireless power technology has been hyped year after year but has been under delivered. Demonstrations this year include Energizer’s Inductive Charger and accessories for the iPhone, designed by ConvenientPower Group; the Fulton Innovation Transmitter; Leggett & Platt Helios Wireless Chargers and center console; and Texas Instruments’ bqTESLA Evaluation Kit for developing wireless power products. Arconas and Powermat also announced that coming soon to an airport seat and lounge near you, you’ll be able to wirelessly charge your gadgets with their technology.

The sixth hot trend at CES and one of the most noticeable jump in interest is the Smart Grid. CES and Clasma Events have organized a full series of sessions with speakers like NIST’s George Arnold and Reliant Energy’s Jason Few while GE, Cisco and power company NRG Energy had booths at the show.

Finally, CES focused on gadget recycling by teaming up with Earth911. Startup Gazelle showed up to tout its gadget, cell phone and laptop reseller and recycling web site.

[source]

The Motorola Xoom tablet won the coveted top honors at the Best of CES awards in Las Vegas and leads the crowded tablet market introduced at CES as the front-runner to compete against the juggernaut Apple iPad.

Motorola Mobility’s hotly awaited tablet computer, the “Xoom,” will be available in the first quarter of the year with a 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen, which is about the same size as Apple’s iPad, which hit stores in April and has other leading technology companies around the world scrambling to catch up.

Google built their “Honeycomb” software specifically to power tablet computers and Motorola believes that helps enable the Xoom as the next generation of tablets.

As CES starts to wind down, the official CES awards were presented for the top gadgets at the “Last Gadget Standing” competition.

The NOOKcolor was honored with the “People’s Choice Award” with the popular Nook eReader’s foray into a full-screen color touchscreen. Votes were cast online by tech enthusiasts.

In the Gaming category, Nintendo took home top honors to no surprise with the Nintendo 3DS which is the next generation DS videogame handset allowing 3D play without having to wear glasses. The Nintendo 3DS is expected to ship in the first half of the new year to crowds similar to those that waited for the Nintendo Wii when that first came out.

In the Digital Imaging category, a Sony “HandyCam” video recorder with a built-in project captured the top spot while the Casio Tryx digital camera won the Slickest Gadget Design.

Intel managed to win the Best Computer Innovation with their new generation of “Sandy Bridge” chips that enable quick handling of data-rich video and games while also providing the ability to stop film piracy.

The Car category top honor was received by a Toyota Entune for creating fun and helpful software applications to use while driving.

Vizio managed to win the TV category with a Vizio TV featuring Internet television from Google and online videogames from OnLive.

The “People’s Voice” award went to the Razor Switchblade laptop that provides full desktop computer gaming power in a small “netbook” thanks to votes logged on the Internet and a dual-screen Acer Iconia laptop that includes a second screen and touch controlled keyboard

Click here to see the top 10 finalist.

Barnes & Noble’s NOOKcolor won the “People’s Choice Award” at the Last Gadget Standing competition in Las Vegas at CES 2011. With over 60% of total votes and 5,000 votes by consumers and technology lovers online, the NOOKcolor won in a landslide.

In addition to winning the “People’s Choice Award”, the gadget was selected as a top ten finalist in the Last Gadget Standing competition from over 200 consumer electronics products and was nominated by leading technology media representatives.

“We’re thrilled and honored that the people have spoken and chosen NOOKcolor as the Last Gadget Standing “People’s Choice Award” winner. This recognition is further testament to the innovative product we’ve created that delivers the ultimate reading experience,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products, Barnes & Noble. “It’s clear that people are excited to read everything they love – books, magazines, newspapers, kids books and more – in rich beautiful color as NOOKcolor has quickly become our bestseller. We’re grateful to all the employees and partners who worked tirelessly on the product in order to bring NOOKcolor to our valued customers.”

To see what the Geeks think about Barnes and Noble’s NOOKcolor, sign-up for our free eReader comparison report.

[Barnes and Noble Press Release]

Yup, we’re featuring yet another tablet, but let’s face it – that’s the hot product this year kicked off of course by the iPad last year. This time it’s the Dell Streak 7, a 4G tablet that will run T-Mobile’s 4G network.

As the name implies, the Streak 7 is a 7″ tablet with a multi-touch 800×480 screen, Android (of course), Adobe Flash Player (suck on that Apple), WiFi, and front- and rear-facing cameras. Runs on the now very popular Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, and has 16GB of storage expandable via SD cards.

There’s a Streak 10 (a 10″ version) that may make an appearance later this year. And of course, you can get the 5″ Dell Streak mini (on AT&T) for $99 with a 2-year contract.

[Dell press release]

Motorola is making a big splash in the tablet market with their Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)-powered Xoom tablet which will run on Verizon’s 4G LTE network.

Here’s the lowdown on the XOOM. It’s a 10.1″ touchscreen weighing in at 1.6 lbs running an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor (this is a pretty popular choice of CPU in this year’s portable gadgets), 1GB RAM and 32GB storage expandable via SD cards.

In addition to the 3G & 4G LTE support, it can act as a 802.11b/g/n WiFi hotspot, and also has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR + HID.

For video, it’s got a 5MP/720p rear-facing video camera, and can play back 1080p videos.

Just one caveat – it’ll be initially a 3G device when launched in the 1st quarter of this year, but then be upgradeable to 4G later in the year.

Motorola promo video:

[Motorola/Verizon press release]

So far, this seems like a very smartphone- and 4G-heavy CES. For example, Verizon announced 10 new 4G LTE devices including smartphones, notebooks and tablets.

Smartphones include the LG Revolution, the HTC Thunderbolt, one from Samsung , and the Motorola Droid Bionic (when are they going to run out of relevant names for that line eh?).

Motorola has the smart-looking Xoom Android 3.0 tablet (which we’ll cover later). And Samsung has the Galaxy Tab (Android 2.2). By the way, what tablet today besides the iPad isn’t running Android?

HP/Compaq has 2 4G notebooks and Samsung has a tiny 4G LTE mobile hot spot.

These 4G devices will show up on Verizon as early as March.

[Verizon press release]