This Week in Mobile Tech Manor #69: CES Gear Bag

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It’s the end of the week, my favorite time as I get to share the happenings at Mobile Tech Manor with you. The big Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is only a few weeks away, and I have pretty much figured out what gear I will be taking with me to provide you with the up-to-the-minute coverage of the show that you deserve. Come on in and visit with me a while and I’ll lay it all out for you.

The big show

Long-time readers are no doubt familiar with our annual trek to Las Vegas for the CES. The timing of the show couldn’t be worse for us personally, falling right after the holiday season ends. We hardly have time to rest up from the holiday party circuit before it’s time to pack bags and hit the desert.

The show is the biggest of its type in the U.S. each year, and the scope of it is gigantic. The exhibition takes up two different conference centers in Vegas, and auxiliary events spill out into numerous hotels on the Strip. It is impossible to see everything related to the event, so planning is crucial to utilize the time available for the show. The exhibition proper runs for four days, but major events associated with the show start several days before that. To provide detailed coverage as we plan to do, a solid five days are needed to hit everything.

CES Hell Week

My schedule for CES week is already daunting, a full month before the show. It is almost frightening to think of the ground that must be covered to be where needed. I will easily walk miles each day to be cover everything planned, so it is imperative to travel as light as possible.

Travel Gear

This week I carefully considered what gear I needed to take for the trip to do everything I will need to do to cover the event. I gave a lot of thought to each piece of gear I considered. I need my bag to be as light as possible, I cannot overstate how important that is. I have covered the CES for years, and past experience has driven home how reckless it is having even one little gadget in the bag that I don’t need.

I will be taking a lot of still photos of cool gear so my old Casio EX-P505 will be riding along in the bag. It is pretty small for such a capable camera and is better than smaller pocket cameras. It is well worth the bulk and weight in the bag. It records onto an SD card for easy photo transfer onto the computer. It can record video in a pinch, but I don’t use it for that often.

This year I intend to shoot more video on the show floor than in years past, so that means video camera gear. I am going to take the HD video camera that I have been using for a few months. The Canon Vixia HF200 is very small and light, so it will not be a burden in the bag. It will record an hour and a half of video on a single battery charge, so I’ll have to carry the power brick in the bag. That breaks my heart but I see no way around that. I gave some thought to picking up a second battery for the camera but I can’t see paying over $50 for something I’m only going to use for a week.

I wish I could carry my camera tripod, as it is very handy for closeup video shoots. It’s not practical to bring, given the tight spaces at the show, so I’ll just carry my tabletop tripod that will fit in the bag. It’s good enough in a pinch.

The HF200 connects to the computer via a microUSB cable and since it records in native AVCHD format (MTS files) it requires software that can handle it on the computer side. I normally use iMovie 09 on the MacBook for this, but I have decided not to bring the Mac with me this year.

It was not an easy decision to leave the Mac at home. It’s fairly light (4.5 lbs.) and rides easily in the gear bag during the day. I mentioned in last week’s column that I was tempted to bring the loaner ThinkPad x200 to cover the show, and that is what I have decided. The ThinkPad is much lighter (3.6 lbs.) and smaller than the Mac, but it’s the ability to rotate the screen and use it as a slate that settled the matter. I will be able to use the x200 in my hands on the show floor, and that is worth gold to me. It also helped that Lenovo sent a loaner battery to use as a second battery for the trip. The two batteries will provide over 12 hours of battery life, and that will make worrying about power outlets a non-issue. The ThinkPad also has an SD card reader, something the MacBook lacks.

I considered briefly bringing the ThinkPad Ultrabase dock along. I wouldn’t carry it during the day, it would stay in the hotel. The only reason I entertained that notion was because the Ultrabase has that unique battery charger built in. Keeping two laptop batteries charged each day is a long process normally, as the long days covering the show will see one battery completely depleted and the second well on the way. Since batteries are charged in the laptop, that means hours of charging one, watching for the full charge to be reached, and then swapping batteries to get the second charged overnight. That’s the only way to start each day with two fresh batteries. This whole process can take over four hours, making for long nights waiting to go to bed and get much needed rest each night.

The Ultrabase solves that problem as it charges the second battery by opening a small trapdoor on the left side of the dock. The battery plugs into the connector that drops down, and a lighted battery gauge indicates the charge level. This means both batteries can be charged at the same time, with one in the laptop charging while sitting in the dock. I must admit this was mighty tempting, but in the end I decided against it. Now I could pack the Ultrabase in my checked bag, as it is very thin and light, which means it only adds weight for the trip and not the daily show excursions. Boy it sure sounds tempting when I read that back. What do you think, should I take the Ultrabase along?

Leaving the Mac at home means no iMovie, so I needed a program to handle the video camera connection to get the videos onto the ThinkPad and then edit them. I did some research and picked up Corel VideoStudio Pro X2. It detects when the camera is attached and allows me to easily pull the video clips onto the ThinkPad. It is a full video editing package for working with the video to get it into condition for publishing here on the site. I haven’t been able to spend much time with it yet, but so far it seems as capable, if not as easy to use, as iMovie. I need to experiment with encoding parameters to get the best compromise between video file size and quality. I did the same thing when starting with iMovie so it’s old hat, just requires elbow grease to get the system down. I have to do that before the trip, there is so little spare time that it must be a simple process to shoot a video and get it published. I have plenty of time before the trip so I’m not worried about that.

Since I am bringing the ThinkPad I will be carrying the Microsoft Arc Mouse. I like the trackstick on the x200, but for extended work sessions I prefer the mouse. It folds up nearly flat for storage, so carrying it is easy. That’s the only accessory I need to carry for the ThinkPad, as the Wacom pen pops in the silo on the notebook for storage.

At a show like the CES connectivity is a must to get the work done in a timely fashion. The event provides Wi-Fi in the press room, and the network is usually not too saturated to give good bandwidth. I’ll have Wi-Fi in the hotel room for the end of day work sessions, but my experience with that in Vegas hotels tells me to have a backup plan. That’s why the Verizon MiFiĀ  will be with me, as it provides high-speed redundancy for connectivity. I do not worry about connectivity with the MiFi along, as I always have good bandwidth with Verizon. Network coverage has always been good in Vegas with Verizon 3G.

I will most likely bring the Palm Pre and the BlackBerry Storm for phone communications. Being in touch is important while on the move at the show, and I like having two alternatives for that. The Pre is my primary phone, but I like having the Verizon network as backup with the Storm. The iPhone will probably stay at home, as my experience with AT&T in Vegas has been abysmal. Google Voice will let me switch back and forth with impunity between the two phones.

So that’s the gear I am taking with me this year. It is a kit that is as light and small as possible, yet will provide a professional work environment as needed. My only concern is that it won’t all fit in my trusty Booq backpack. I love traveling with that bag as it is thin and light yet keeps all my gear in easily accessible reach. Having the two cameras with me might preclude being able to use the Booq, though, so I might need to carry a bigger backpack this year. I really hate using a bag bigger than the Booq for the daily excursions, but I might have to do so.

A smartbook CES

I think this year’s CES will see a big focus on the smartbook, as the major players are getting ready to release the first models at CES. Smartbooks are notebook devices that will run alternative processors, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Nvidia’s Tegra and Freescale’s MX, coupled with alternative OSes since these processors cannot run Windows. Joanna Stern has an excellent overview of the smartbook situation on GigaOM Pro (subscription required) that identifies all of the players in the smartbook game. I already have meetings for hands-on demonstrations of smartbooks at the CES and I am excited about seeing this new class of mobile device get some legs. I will be meeting with all of the players mentioned in Joanna’s article, and I expect be able to show you a number of smartbooks at the show. What will they look like? Will they be as big as netbooks or much smaller?

Wrap-up

I have rambled on about the gear bag I am taking to CES this year, so I haven’t covered the e-books I have been reading this week. I’ll return to that next week, don’t worry. As always have a great week until next time.

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