If it weren’t for a certain other laptop-related announcement, the big news in laptops today would undoubtedly be this: Samsung is going to begin selling portable computers again in the U.S., re-entering one of the few personal electronics categories it doesn’t play in. (The company has been out of the market for a long time, with the exception of its Ultra Mobile PC.)
Actually, this is still reasonably big news. I got a sneak peek at the new Samsungs recently, and from what I saw, the company’s explanation of why it retreated from the PC market for so long–because it wanted to wait until it could do things right–rings true. It’s returning with a pretty full line of portables, skewing towards the high end. And Samsung being Samsung, nearly every component in these machines is actually made by Samsung, except for the CPUs, graphics, and operating systems.
I’ve been spending the day at IFA, the giant consumer electronics show in Berlin that’s Europe’s equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I’m having a good time, but one conclusion I’ve drawn so far is that CES has the edge when it comes to major announcements about flashy new technologies and jaw-dropping specs. CES isn’t CES without stuff like the world’s first OLED TV or world’s thinnest LCD or the world’s largest plasma. IFA, however, seems to be dominated by more mainstream products and technologies that are cool, but not cutting-edge. You could argue that that’s a good thing, since very few of us will buy the first OLED TV or biggest LCD or thinnest plasma. But it does make for a somewhat more subdued show.
