Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: iPad, iPhone and Nexus

Get Ahead reader Ismail A Muhsin crystal gazes and comes out with his list of the most awaited gadgets in 2011 in response to our reader invite (below).

Ismail is pursuing his MBA from a premier management institute after two years of experience in telecom R & D. He is an ardent follower of upcoming trends in emerging technologies and businesses.

Year 2010 has been a transforming period in areas like smartphones and tablets with intense competition amongst both device makers as well as platform players like android.

Apple's iPad created a new product category in the name of tablets which triggered a horde of other players like Samsung, Dell etc to come out with the tablets of their own.

Mainstream products like TVs are transforming into 'Smart TVs' that provide new spheres of entertainment like 3D vision, integration of online media like YouTube along with support of portable media.

Gaming industry is seeing a sea change in the way games are going to be played with motion and gesture devices like Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move entering into the market.

So who is gaining the most out of this exciting and technologically competitive industry setting? Consumers, of course.

Lets us look at the most awaited upcoming gadgets of year 2011.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: Motorola split, HTC Thunderbolt and Sony Playstation phone

Smartphones: Androids

Android is certainly shaking up the smart devices industry and as expected most of the widely expected smartphones in 2011 will be sporting android OS. Motorola will continue its good run with the droids -- the Droid 2, Droid X and Droid Pro and are known for its exciting and innovative form factors.

Motorola's unofficial 2011 list includes 4G phones Olympus, Etna, Cliq 2 and a phone with weird form factor, the Motorola SPLIT.

4G is expected to go mainstream in 2011 and may define the trend in smartphones market.

HTC Evo Shift 4G and HTC Thunderbolt 4G are awaiting releases. Many of these devices are said to sport NVIDIA Tegra 2 chips which is competing against the standard Qualcomm chips and are expected to redefine graphics processing capabilities.

Sony will be releasing its Playstation phone Zeus that features android whereas LG will be upgrading its range of Optimus phones to Optimus 2X.

Dell will continue its Android beasts like Streak with an unofficial Opus which is likely to come out with Android 3.0, the Honeycomb.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: HTC 7 Pro and Nokia E7

Smartphones: Others

Apple will be releasing its next iPhone version, the iPhone 5 and as always Apple may come out with unique surprises with new features like mobile wallet, LTE support or even a pico projector.

Windows mobile 7 which is sported by a few phones as of now like HTC HD 7 and Dell Lightning is well received for its exciting new user interface but is still not an established platform in its early version as it lacked basic features like multi-tasking.

However it has set aggressive hardware specifications and with further releases Microsoft will make sure that it emerges as an alternate choice for high-end smartphones.

Wait, did we forget Nokia here?

Yes, Nokia will be releasing E7 and other devices that may boast 1GHz processors and dual cores that run on modified Symbian OS. But unless it comes out with Meego based devices, it cannot make much difference in the smart devices segment.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: Motorola Xoom and Blackberry Playbook

Tablets

These days Tablets are a new phenomenon that everybody seems to be catching on. 2011 will see a whole new segment emerging in the form of tablets.

Apple will be coming out with iPad 2 that will improve upon existing iPad's missing features. A host of new iPad accessories could be expected to be launched in the market right from flexible keyboards, docking stations and even mini projectors.

Google's Android 3.0 or Honeycomb that is to be released during Q1 this year will be specifically tuned for Tablets.

In fact, a variety of companies including Motorola, Toshiba, LG, Dell and Samsung have already confirmed launches of android based Tablets in 2011.

Motorola Xoom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quI2I8wLPdc) is the most exciting of them all and will have the NVIDIA Tegra processor with great support for 3D graphics whereas Toshiba will be launching its mid-sized tablet Folio 100.

RIM will also be releasing its tablet the Playbook that would mainly target corporate users. HP and Acer are likely to release Windows based tablets.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: Gesture based gaming: Kinect, portable gaming system Ocomos

Gaming consoles and accessories

Microsoft recently stunned the gaming industry with its Kinect, an Xbox accessory for a controller-free gaming experience that detects human gestures and voices for manoeuvring and control.

This year will see a sea change in the way video games are played as lots of exciting games are said to be under development based on gesture and Kinect. Sony is also in the market with it Playstation Move for its motion sensing video games and stands to gain as its Blue ray technology is getting established across players.

Though only a prediction, it's highly likely that Apple may enter game console market with its established iOS and devices platform.

Handheld gaming Systems like Nintendo 3DS and Panasonic Jungle and even windows based Ocomos are said to emerge and set a new trend in the portable gaming segment.
Mobile and tablets based gaming will also continue their explosive growth in 2011 with better graphics and gaming experiences.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: Samsung TV C9000 along with Touch Remote

TVs

Smart TVs will be the name and 3D is the new 'avatar' for the TV market. Samsung will be launching passive 3D TVs that do not require the clunky glasses.

TVs will feature Internet capabilities like Wi-Fi and online/Youtube videos, live streams and video calling facilities like Skype on TV.

Portable media will also be playable along with dedicated storage for local media. TVs will also be able to support user installable applications.

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Most awaited gadgets in 2011

Image: Intel sandy Bridge processor

Laptops and PCs

Intel has recently unveiled its next generation Sandy Bridge processors that have integrated graphics capabilities that will change the current trend of multi-core processors.

Upcoming players like MSI and Asus are expected to release innovative single screen multi-touch desktop (Butterfly concept), and powerful new netbooks.

On the OS front Google's Chrome OS will see a release and Samsung, Acer will be releasing the first notebooks based on Chrome OS.

Other major technology game changers would be Ultra compact SLRs expected from Panasonic (GF2), emergence of Blue ray players instead of DVD, mini projectors or pico projectors and gadgets on cars like preinstalled Google maps.

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