HANOVER, GERMANY -- As ever, CeBIT is featuring a clutter of consumer electronics devices, with vendors eager to hype the smallest improvement or upgrade on a product in order to claim a world first. Even to the most skeptical eyes, however, some of the wares peddled at this year's show were impressive.
The bragging contest between Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics continues unabated, with Samsung scoring two major hits, showing the world's biggest plasma and LCD TVs. Its 82-inch LCD made its debut here; the plasma screen, which measures 102 inches diagonally, was announced late last year.
Fighting back, LG showed what it claims is the world's largest commercialized plasma TV, at 71 inches across the diagonal. The company also unveiled what to some tastes may be a candidate for the gaudiest product at the show, a gold-decorated home theatre system that it's calling its Luxury Gold Design.
Phone Parade
Turning to mobile phones, Samsung showed its SGH-Z500, which the company claims is the world's smallest phone for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA). It measures 3.5 by 1.75 by 1 inch and includes an MP3 music player. The company has also developed a cell phone with a 7-megapixel camera, which it showed for the first time. The SCH-V770 features many functions that are found on digital still cameras, such as manual focus, a choice of shutter speed and shutter priority exposure controls.
Also not to be sneezed at is the company's SCH-869 anti-bacterial phone. A coating of antimicrobial paint on the phone starves bacteria of oxygen. The paint contains tiny silver particles and is 99.9 percent effective in killing single-cell organisms, but is safe for humans, the company said.
Samsung also showcased its first Windows Mobile-based smart phones for Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks and its first two smart phones running Symbian OS.
Of the Windows-based devices, the new SGH-I300 got its first public showing and drew the most attention. The phone sports a 3GB hard disk drive, which can be used for storage of music or video files, for example. When used to play back music, the phone's batteries will last about five hours, according to Samsung.
Symbians and a No-Show
On the Symbian side, Samsung for the first time showed its SGH-D730, a sleek tri-band phone with a clamshell design that features a digital camera. The SGH-D730, and Samsung's other Symbian phone, the SGH-D720, should be available later this year, company representatives said.
While Samsung had firsts at Cebit, the South Korean company also had to admit to a failed product launch. The Palm OS-based SGH-I500 that it brought to the show in 2003 was never commercially launched, and the company has been unable to ship any phone containing the operating system developed by PalmSource.
"The market response wasn't very good," said Samsung product planner Ryan Lee about the SGH-I500 phone. Samsung doesn't even have a prototype Palm OS phone ready now, but it has not ruled out the possibility that it may one day use the operating system. "We're still looking at Palm," Lee said.
When it comes to mobile computing, Asus Computer, part of contract computer maker Asustek Computer of Taiwan, will shortly put on sale what it claims to be the thinnest notebook PC with a 15-inch screen. A version of the V6800V series is 1 inch thick and weighs 5.6 pounds, the company said.
To see PC World's complete CeBIT coverage, check out our CeBIT 2005 news page.
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