Monday, March 18, 2002
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "HARDWARE" @ 01:37 PM
I was at CeBIT in Hannover Germany last week as you know and saw some really cool stuff. Of course I focused on mobile devices, primarily smart phones, PDA's and hybrid devices from Compaq, NEC, Sony, Hewlett Packard, Palm, Sony-Ericsson, etc.
I walked up to the Sony booth hoping to get some hands on time with the new PEG-NR70 announced last week. They didn't have one, and surprisingly, until I showed it to them on the web, had never seen one before, which makes me question the US timetable.
Anyway, they had a Clie mockup that was about 7 feet tall with a large screen TV in it, and a real Clie on a stand in front of it with a camera pointing to the screen. Wires ran from the camera to the large screen and it was showing some impressive video and pictures on the big screen, presumably showing you what was on the Sony's screen. The frame rate and color was awesome. I figured this had to be some new 66MHz device given what it was doing, so I stepped around to take a closer look at the real Clie. It wasn't even ON! I asked the Sony rep if the presentation was coming from another Clie I wasn't seeing. "No. The presentation isn't real. It is just to get your attention." (click on the images below for full size photos)
COME ON PEOPLE! How ridiculous. It is one thing to create a presentation that is pushing the device beyond its intended use, it is another to just totally fake it. So, I guess Palm licensees have given up on telling you that you don't need something until they have it for you like color, sound, etc. Now they just make you think it comes with it and in the case of the Clie, you won't notice that instead of the big screen TV quality video clips, you'll be getting something that doesn't even run full screen and has a frame rate well south of 15 after you buy it. :-(
Not a week goes by I don't see some parallel to Seinfeld, and this is just another example. :-D
I walked up to the Sony booth hoping to get some hands on time with the new PEG-NR70 announced last week. They didn't have one, and surprisingly, until I showed it to them on the web, had never seen one before, which makes me question the US timetable.
Anyway, they had a Clie mockup that was about 7 feet tall with a large screen TV in it, and a real Clie on a stand in front of it with a camera pointing to the screen. Wires ran from the camera to the large screen and it was showing some impressive video and pictures on the big screen, presumably showing you what was on the Sony's screen. The frame rate and color was awesome. I figured this had to be some new 66MHz device given what it was doing, so I stepped around to take a closer look at the real Clie. It wasn't even ON! I asked the Sony rep if the presentation was coming from another Clie I wasn't seeing. "No. The presentation isn't real. It is just to get your attention." (click on the images below for full size photos)
COME ON PEOPLE! How ridiculous. It is one thing to create a presentation that is pushing the device beyond its intended use, it is another to just totally fake it. So, I guess Palm licensees have given up on telling you that you don't need something until they have it for you like color, sound, etc. Now they just make you think it comes with it and in the case of the Clie, you won't notice that instead of the big screen TV quality video clips, you'll be getting something that doesn't even run full screen and has a frame rate well south of 15 after you buy it. :-(
Not a week goes by I don't see some parallel to Seinfeld, and this is just another example. :-D
