Finalists named for year’s hottest products at CES

By Amanda Finnegan

Friday, Jan. 7, 2011 | 7:45 p.m.

Envelope, please. On Friday, tech website CNET announced the finalists for the Best of CES 2011, the official awards for the hottest products at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Awards are given in 12 categories: car tech; digital imaging; design; gaming; home theater; PCs and laptops; prototypes; smartphones; software, services and apps; storage and networking; tablets; and TVs.

The winners will be announced Saturday morning.

Here’s a list of some of the most notable products among the nominees:

Car tech

Toyota Entune

Drivers can download Entune to their smart phone and access a variety of in-car applications from their phone, such as Bing, Pandora, Open Table and MovieTickets.com. The applications are then controlled by using the touch screen of voice commands. Entune will be available in select models next year.

Onstar

Onstar announced this week that it will be making its services available to non-GM vehicles. The company’s mirror frame features the OnStar button, as well as buttons for emergency response and hands-free calling. The aftermarket add-on with be compatible for cars from Ford, Lincoln, Toyota, Nissan, Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, and Honda, Onstar said.

ContourGPS

The ContourGPS by Contour is the first GPS video camera. The video camera captures real-time GPS and HD video. The built-in GPS receiver tracks your location, speed and altitude while also recording in hands-free HD.

Design

Samsung HT-D7100

The Samsung HT-D7100 Blu-ray home theater system features a cube-like design, built-in Wi-Fi and can access Samsung Apps. The HT-D7100 contains a built-in subwoofer, which features 110 watts of total power. The HT-D7100 is expected to hit the market early this year.

Casio Tryx

The Casio Tryx looks like any digital camera at first glance, but its 3-inch LCD high-resolution, touch screen flips out and can pivot 360 degrees, while the screen itself cane rotate 270 degrees. In addition, the Tryx can take full HD video. The camera will be on the market in April for $250.

Acer Iconia dual screen laptop

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer first showed off the Acer Iconia during his keynote address Wednesday night. The laptop has two 14-inch touch screens which multi-touch sensors. Wondering how to type? The Iconia has a the option of a touch screen keyboard.

Digital Imagining

Sony HDR-PJ series

This Sony Handycam comes with a projector built right into the body. The projector can show an image up to 60 inches. The cameras includes a 12X zoom lens, a built-in GPS receiver for geo-tagging and a 3-inch LCD screen.

Samsung H100

The Samsung H100 is a WiFi enabled camera that can automatically connect to your favorite social networking sites for seamless uploading. Other features include a 5X optical zoom and 3-inch LCD screen. Expect it in stores in March for $199.

Gaming

Nintendo DS 3-D

The Nitendo DS 3-D is the company’s first venture into 3-D. The portable system has all the features of the traditional DS, but with glasses-free 3-D gaming.

Alienware M17x R3 gaming laptop

This gaming laptop is Alienware’s new version of its 17-inch M17x laptop. It’s features include HDMI-in capability for connecting to Xbox 360 or PS3, wireless HD capabilities and a price point of $1,500.

SoundBlaster Tactic3D Omega wireless gaming headset

The Tactic3D Omega gaming headset is priced at $199 and works with Macs, Windows PCs, PS3 and Xbox 360. SoundBlaster also noted they are good for motion controlled games like Kinect and Wii because the headphones are wireless.

Home Theater

Samsung BD-D7000

The Samsung BD-D7000 Blu-Ray player features an ultra slim design. It’s 3D compatible, WiFi enabled and has access to Samsung Apps like Netflix, Hulu and Pandora. Samsung said to expect the BD-D7000 sometime in the first part of this year.

Samsung HW-D7000

The Samsung HW-D7000 combines a full AV receiver with a Blu-ray player. It is also WiFi-enabled and has access to Samsung Apps like Netflix, Hulu and Pandora.

Sony HomeShare

The Sony HomeShare system sends music from your portable devices to your home audio system with the touch of the button. Playing Pandora on your iPhone? Plug it into one of your HomeShare devices and stream it to your others. HomeShare supports a “PartyStreaming” feature that allows you to sync all devices to stream the same music. There’s also an iPhone and Android app that can control all of the devices in your HomeShare network.

Smartphones

LG Revolution

The LG Revolution was just announced for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. The phone has a 4.3-inch display, WiFi, can play HD video and is a 3G and 4G hotspot for up to eight devices. Pricing and availability are still unknown.

HTC Thunderbolt

The HTC Thunderbolt, which will run on Android 2.2, offers 8GB of internal storage, an 8-megapixel camera with HD video capture and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. Pricing and a release date were not announced.

Motorola Droid Bionic

Announced at the Verizon keynote on Thursday morning, the Bionic will be the first phone to run on Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb. Sanjay Jha, the chief executive of the newly formed Motorola Mobility, called the Bionic “the end of waiting” phone, with the ability to download music in seconds and no delays in video conferencing, thanks to the phone’s two cameras.

Motorola Atrix 4G

The Motorola Atrix 4G will feature a 4-inch touchscreen, dual 1GHz processors, has 16GB of internal memory and can use microSD cards up to 32GB. There’s also a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, a camcorder with 720p video capture and HD video playback.

Tablets

Motorola Xoom

The Xoom was announced at Thursday morning’s keynote address as the first tablet to run on Android 3.0. Among other specs, the Xoom will run Adobe Flash, feature two cameras (one for video conferencing and one for HD video) and play video at full HD 1080p. The Xoom will launch with 3G in February and will upgrade to 4G later in the year.

BlackBerry Playbook

The Blackberry Playbook is the company’s 7-inch tablet. The tablet will be flash enabled, have 3G network access when using your Blackberry as a modem via Bluetooth, and feature dual HD cameras and stereo video quality sound. Pricing is unknown at this time.

Toshiba’s tablet

Toshiba also has a tablet running on Android 3.0 scheduled to hit the market in the first part of 2011.

Samsung sliding PC7

The Samsung sliding PC7 is a laptop and a tablet all in one. When opening the PC7, it looks like an ordinary laptop, but its screen flips back into a tablet. The 10.1-inch mini computer has a multi-touch screen and keyboard so it can operate as both.

TVs

Vizio XVT3D6SP series

The Vizio XVT3D6SP series is the company’s line of TVs with the Google TV platform. Users can browse all of their favorite apps like Pandora and YouTube through the TVs WiFi connection. The TV will ship in both a 47-inch and 55-inch version and is also 3-D compatable.

Panasonic TC-PVT30 series

Last year, Panasonic’s 3-D TV took the CNET Best of Show award. This year, the company is back with its next version of the 3-D TV. The Panasonic TC-PVT30 series comes with a 3D-compatible SD card slot, a pair of 3-D glasses and the Viera Connect Internet suite.