What to Expect at CES 2011

It’s less than a month until the Consumer Electronics Show sets the pace for the rest of 2011. Held in Las Vegas, CES is a showcase of the technology that will be debuting over the following year. It covers a wide range of products, including not just computers but also HDTVs, phones and even cars.

I will be at CES this year, covering the latest technology for Bright Hub. Big shows like this always have their surprises, but here is what I expect to be big headlines of CES 2011.

The Year of the APU

Hah! CPU – what a quaint term. 2011 will be the year of the APU, as both Intel and AMD are releasing new processor architectures that incorporate graphics technology into the processor die. This isn’t just a simple integrated graphics tack-on, either. CPU and GPU resources will be shared, creating a new product that so far is going by the term APU, for stands for “Accelerated Processing Unit.”

Intel’s  Sandybridge is, by all indications, nearly ready to ship. I’ve already heard from vendors that new desktops with Sandybridge will be available in very early 2011. As such, Intel’s announcements at CES 2011 will focus on laying down the framework of the product line going forward. We should also learn more about when Sandybridge processors will be available in laptops.

AMD’s desktop APU, Bulldozer, isn’t expected to release until the second half of 2011. We’ll likely learn more about when that release will happen and, if we’re lucky, we’ll also receive out first taste of what Bulldozer’s performance might be like. Bobcat, the mobile APU, should be very near launch by the time CES 2011 roles around. Some press outlets have already had the chance to test a prototype system based on Brazos, the platform that will host these new processors. I expect that we will see various laptop manufacturers boasting full-fledged products using this platform.

This is all very exciting. The rise of the APU suggests a lot of good things about the future of computer hardware. GPUs tend to perform certain tasks much better than traditional CPUs. If Intel and AMD can successfully integrated GPU technology into their processors, processor performance will increase dramatically in certain applications.

Tablets. No, Seriously

Many tech enthusiasts predicted that the iPad would be quickly followed by a wide range of tablet products. Technically this prediction has proven  correct, but the tablets launched so far don’t feel very serious. Many of them, like the tablets from Archos, feel half-baked. Others, like the Samsung Galaxy, are absurdly expensive. And all of them have received half-hearted support from headquarters. How many non-nerds know that the Galaxy even exists?

CES 2011 may finally rectify this situation. We know that Acer and ASUS are putting serious effort into new Windows based tablets. I’m particularly excited to see what ASUS announces for 2011, as the company has introduced number innovative products into the laptop space. If they put the same effort into a tablet, it could be something special.

I think the iPad really blind-sided a lot of tech companies. Few products have been released in response because no one knows how to respond. It’s been about 9 months now, however, so I expect to see new competitors from companies like HP, Dell and Lenovo. In fact, I’ll be incredibly disappointed if I don’t. While I’ve never been one to believe that tablets will change the world, I do think they’re an important new device, and there seems to be a lot of feet-dragging in the industry.

Of course, the rumored new iPad could also make its debut at CES.

Tegra 2, too late?

CES 2011 will be an important moment for Nvidia’s Tegra 2 SoC. As I’ve commented on in the past, Nvidia seems to be having trouble securing partners for Tegra 2. It is in some products, but not a ton, and not as many as you’d expect given the quoted performance. This may reveal performance limitations, or it may simply be indicate that Nvidia hasn’t been able to make an appealing business case for the Tegra 2.

This industry is often a long game, however. CES 2011 could reveal a number of new Tegra 2 products. If new tablets are announced, it would be reasonable to expect many of them to be Tegra 2 products. If they’re not, that will be more bad news for the green team. In fact, I’d say that CES 2011 could be the verdict on Tegra 2′s success or failure. Nvidia is already working on Tegra 2, and if there are not many Tegra products announced at CES 2011 I don’t think the SoC will ever see widespread adoption.

Conclusion

This is not, of course, a definitive list of what we could see at CES. These are simply the things that I expect, and that I will be looking for. What do you think will debut? Let me know in the comments.