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During CES 2008, Samsung announced twenty-seven new LCD and plasma TV’s, all of which had not received price tags, until now. These new models range in size anywhere from a small 18.9-inches to the large 63-inch model.

Beginning with the Series 4 LCD models, which are lower-end 720p TV’s. These range in size from an 18.9-inch model up to 39.9-inches and retail from $429 up to $1,299. Next, we have the Series 5 LCD models, which are low-end 1080p models. These range in size from 31.5-inches up to a 52.2-inch model. They are priced from $1,099 up to $2,799. Next up is the Series 6 LCD models, which are the high-end 1080p models. These range in size from a small 19-inch up to the large 52.2-incher and are priced from $479 up to $3,199. Finishing up with the LCD models we have the Series 7 line-up and they range in size from 39.9-inches up to 52-inches. They retail from $2,599 and top out at $3,499. 

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At CES this year, Blu-ray had a pretty slick setup.  Not only did they tout their recently announced partnership with Warner Bros., but they also had a speaker talking about their superiority while facing the HD DVD booth… which turned out to be very funny.  The Blu-ray booth had such things as a ship from Pirates of the Caribbean, Homer and Marge Simpson, and the 150-inch Panasonic TV.  We’ve got a full gallery of images for you to look at, so check them out below…

Check out the gallery: CES 2008 Booth Tour: Blu-ray

Monster Cable’s press event at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show had a few surprises.  Most notably, Noel Lee, Head Monster of Monster Cable / Power announced a new partnership with Dr. Dre on a set up high-end studio headphones, dubbed Beats by Dr. Dre.  The company was clearly ecstatic to be working with Dre, and mentioned that he wouldn’t allow them to release them until they were absolutely perfect.  According to the PR mumbo-jumbo, the headphones are “crystal clear”, but we’ll just have to see for ourselves.  Dr. Dre walked out on stage with Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine for the release of the new branded headphones.  If you’re wondering how Dre feels about the announcement, I think this quote from him sums it up best:

“When I’m making a track I’m trying to capture the sound that makes me go ‘now THAT’s the ####! And I want that reaction from everybody who hears it,” said Dr. Dre. “I spend a lot of time in the studio listening to my music through headphones...with Beats, people are finally going to hear it the way they should: the way I do.”

Check out more photos by heading over to our gallery below…

Check out the gallery: Monster and Dr. Dre team up on new studio headphones, meet 'Beats by Dr. Dre'

The death of TV, really?  Quite possibly, yes.  Microsoft didn’t say that of course, but if you put all the pieces announced tonight together, you come to a pretty obvious conclusion rather quickly.  Network TV, at least as we know it, will die.

Here are the puzzle pieces, see if you come to the same conclusion I did:

IPTV
At tonight’s CES 2008 Keynote, Microsoft made a big announcement:  they’ve got 1 million set top boxes for its Mediaroom.  This is 6 months ahead of schedule for Microsoft.  They’ve done this pretty quietly now, but at this rate they are adding 2 IPTV subscribers every minute. 

Making TV yours
Let’s say you love Nascar and follow a particular driver.

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Alpine recently released their 2008 catalog and it looks like they are planning 2 new GPS models. Both are almost the same except for one main difference, the K3msn has MSN Direct, hence the ‘msn’ in the product name, and the other doesn’t. MSN Direct offers up-to-date traffic, weather, gas price information and movie showtimes. Otherwise, they both have identical features, which are as follows:

• 4.3-inch wide high resolution touchscreen
• Pre-loaded maps of USA & Canada (including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico & Virgin Islands)
• Fast routing and map zooming
• 6 million POIs with selectable map icons
• Auto map zoom
• Multi-language menus and voice guide
• Customizable map and menu colors
• Animated menus
• Easy to use windshield and dashboard mount
• Built-in SD card slot and speaker for use with music player
• Announces street names during guidance
• Built-in Bluetooth for convenient hands-free calling

As you can tell, both of these GPS units look to be jam packed with nice features. As long as they aren’t too expensive, they should sell well. Unfortunately, there is no word on pricing or availability as of yet, but hopefully, some more information will be released when CES rolls around.

Via [NaviGadget]

Many new and exciting GPS units will be making debuts at CES, all of which have cool new features. Raytel, is the American partner of the German company German Funkwerk. Now, one of the great features of the EGO Drive is that it comes with this remote controller knob which enables you to keep your eyes on the road, and in turn hopefully prevent accidents.

Additionally, the EGO Drive comes with 3D maps, Bluetooth for hands free calling, and a nice 4.3-inch touch screen display - with a stylus. A cool feature is the on board text-to-speech interface, which can read your text messages out loud for you. It even comes with a light sensor, which will automatically adjust the brightness of the screen to make sure you can always see it. Furthermore, it comes with an unspecified amount of internal memory, and it supports SD memory expansion up to 2GB.

Picture: EGO Drive

Finally, there are many features offered with Bluetooth:

• Voice recognition (speech-to-text, no training required).
• Complies with all hands-free laws.
• Integrates and mutes car’s stereo system.
• Supports all Bluetooth mobile phone voice commands.
• DSP technology for noise and echo suppression.
• Reads out text messages (SMS text-to-speech).
• Shows text and picture messages (SMS and MMS).
• Accommodates up to 10 different user profiles.
• Audio streaming (A2DP and AVRCP).

Unfortunately, no word on pricing or availability at this time.

Via [NaviGadget]

LG Philips are ready to debut not one, but five new, interesting and hot panels at CES in a few weeks. Panels are always a big thing and there are many giant companies involved, one of the biggest is Sharp. LG Philips is looking to hold off the competition, and these five panels look to be pretty nice.

• 52-inch multi-touch LCD - full 1080p, two touch detection
• 84-inch multi-touch LCD - 2 x 4 array of 42-inch panels, totaling full 1080p resolution, 500cd/m2 brightness
• 47-inch triple-view LCD - full 1080p, 250cd/m2 brightness, three separate images, which is kind of like Sharp’s triple view
• 47-inch double sided LCD - 70mm thickness, 500cd/m2 brightness, displays images on both sides
• 42-inch transflective LCD - the 1,500cd/m2

Unfortunately, these TV’s aren’t going to be ready for a while, as they are just being unveiled at CES. These panels are produced for OEM’s that will then take them and incorporate them into their design. Yet another round of gadgets that are sure to make CES filled with hot, new gadgets.

Via [Engadget]

This years CES is going to have on display many new and exciting gadgets, and Becker will have on display another one of their GPS units. The annoying thing about Becker is how they name their GPS units, they only use a lot of confusing numbers, so hopefully, there won’t be many Becker models with similar names.

The Becker Traffic Assist 7827 will come with maps of North America already on a 2GB SD card, which is set to come with points-of-interest for the continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, as well as Puerto Rico. These maps also come with Reality View, and can be viewed on its 4.3-inch touch screen display. One interesting aspect of this GPS is that it will even tell you if you are in the correct lane, because of its highly informative freeway data.

Additionally, it will be able to act like an MP3 player, display photos, can even display speed limits, and provide you with real time traffic updates. No word on pricing or availability, but the same GPS is currently available in Eurpoe for 250 Euros, which is around $500.

Via [NaviGadget]

According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), over 50 percent (approximately 57 million) of American households now own a digital TV. Figures are based on market and research data from the manufacturers of television and consumer electronics that compose the association as well as consumer research.

Revenue for digital TV sales is expected to grow by 11 percent to $25 billion in 2007; a number CEA predicts will increase an additional 13 percent in 2008

According to the President and CEO of CEA, Gary Shapiro:

“We have crossed a critical threshold. Consumers are particularly keen to add HDTV to their homes, with high definition expected to account for 79 percent of total DTV shipments in the U.S. in 2008.”

It is expected that television broadcasters will shift from analog to digital signals on February 17, 2009. The problem with this transition is that analog TV sets without digital set-top boxes will be rendered useless. The Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report earlier this month criticizing US regulators for not preparing viewers for this transition.

Shapiro and other CEA officials will appear on several DTV-related panels during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 7-10.

Read [PC Mag]

Epoq will be ready to put their new 4GB PMP on display at CES this January. This little PMP is nothing too special, but it does make for a nice PMP. One of the main features is the touch screen, and its wide array of format support.

It begins with a nice 3-inch touch screen with 320x240 resolution. It only features 4GB of internal memory, but it can be expanded with SD memory cards. It also comes with an FM radio as well as an audio recorder. Oddly enough, it doesn’t support MPEG4 or DivX, but it makes up for that in the other formats that it supports. Now onto the supported formats, for video it handles RMVB, AVI, DAT(VCD), and FLV. For audio, it only supports WMA and MP3. Finally for photo, it can handle JPEG, GIF, and BMP. It measures out at 3.85-inches x 2.36-inches x .47-inches and weighs just 3.17 ounces.

No word on when it will available, but you can check it out at CES, and it is set to cost around $250.

Via [Ubergizmo]