Lenovo Helix

http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-thinkpad-helix-extended-hands-on-rip-and-flip-up-close-and-personal-09264582/

Sony's 4K OLED showing true 4K footage from Rio's Carnival was totally mind blowing.  You could see everything!  Sharp's IGZO was pretty darned cool too.  On their small felxible display, the level of clarity and resolution showed how plausible glass free 3D can be when feeding sharp, layered imaging.  The sharpness and depth of the cherry blossoms at a temple in Japan was 'Woweewow'.  Nothing at Samsung did anything for me, Sony still rules OLED. 

I enjoyed this CES more for meeting folks and hanging w/ friends more than gear compared to past years.  Meeting Fang, Axel Grell, the Fiio boys, seeing Michael Goodman again. All great stuff.  Didn't have a chance to connect w/ Chris (cn11) or Tyll as we all seemed to be caught up w/ our own engagements.  Maybe next time.

Some low points, lots of BS marketing and blatant false representations.  Sony's booth was full of them wrt 4K.  They had these side by sides of new 4K sets next to standard HD showcasing various 'new tech' advances.  It was all bullshit.  They purposely gimped the normal sets via contrast, color saturation, etc to make them look like crap.  Myself and a few others called this out in front of some of their reps and they feigned ignorance.  I've seen the Sony HD sets from past years and nothing they make looks as bad as what they misrepresented.  This is not a new practice but it was the most extreme and worst example I've ever seen at CES.  Samsung's booth was all glitz and hype but Is aw nothing worthy of all the noise.  The curved OLED did nothing for me.  Galaxy note 2 was okay.  Canon's user gallery blew Nikon's out of the water, that was a no contest for some reason.  Car audio was pretty much dead or dying save for Pioneer and the rep who couldn't answer any of my questions.  Others like JVC, Kenwood, Clarion maintained a token display.  GM, Ford, Audi and Lexus were all there displaying integrated electronics.  Ferrari was there w/ their new headphone line but didn't get to hear anything as we got to them at the end of the day.  Sony had one headphone all over the place.  Beyer had the usual suspects.  AT didn't have anything at the level of the M50 or CK10 there, they've basically written off mid to hi-fi in the states talking to their rep.  You'll have to go through Nippon.

Fang's 901 was pretty nice, it played everything I threw at it including 24/88.2, 96, 192, flac, aiff.  DACs pretty nice, will make the ABI crowd happy.  The Leckerton UHA6S is still a better amp section than the 901.  Fiio X3 is pretty good for the price but will not be what hard core folks like myself ultimately need beyond a mere trasnport.  FW needed more work, crashed on 2 24/88.2 files, it was not even beta but an engineering sample.  E12 sample was pretty nice, much better than the E11 and X3 amp section.  I saw and was informed of some other devices from Fiio I don't think I should mention yet.  HiFiM8 is pretty good, couldn't run a whole gambit of tests as I had to run to an appointment and they had decided to set up late that day.  We also had some technical issues in mating gear.  It wouldn't mate to my Nokia N8, they only had dual 3 pin XLR's ready so I had to use my HD800 via 1/4.  One of their laptops that could access my sdcard lost sync w/ their devices while the other that did sync had no sdcard slot.  It was a technical clusterfuck tbh.  Had to listen to unfamiliar tracks via mediamonkey which sounds terrible.  It is better than the DACPort, but I'm not sure it's better than the DACPort LX > Leckerton UHA6S.  That remains to be seen as does it working w/ my phone.  A few concerns I have w/ Michael's approach atm.  I don't think they quite get the USB on the go spec and he seems to relate quality amplification as a mere function of distortion and gain only. 

The show was all about tablets, hybrids, phones and headphones.  Headphone saturation!  Everyone and their mother had new headphones ready to jump into the market.  Oh, there were 2-3 vendors pushing hydrophobic treatments for electronics.  Another guy selling a plastic bag as 'waterproof' for the iPad that could do maybe 1-2 feet.  Bosch makes a mean chocolate chip cookie!

The other SHOW got to listen to some KEF Blades off of Parasound, Voxativ's new wall speaker, some Maggie 3.7s and their new bass panel off of Bryston.  Linn was pretty underwhelming.  Then time ran out.

Fang's 901 was pretty nice, it played everything I threw at it including 24/88.2, 96, 192, flac, aiff.  DACs pretty nice, will make the ABI crowd happy.  The Leckerton UHA6S is still a better amp section than the 901.  Fiio X3 is pretty good for the price but will not be what hard core folks like myself ultimately need beyond a mere trasnport.  FW needed more work, crashed on 2 24/88.2 files, it was not even beta but an engineering sample.  E12 sample was pretty nice, much better than the E11 and X3 amp section.  I saw and was informed of some other devices from Fiio I don't think I should mention yet.  HiFiM8 is pretty good, couldn't run a whole gambit of tests as I had to run to an appointment and they had decided to set up late that day.  We also had some technical issues in mating gear.  It wouldn't mate to my Nokia N8, they only had dual 3 pin XLR's ready so I had to use my HD800 via 1/4.  One of their laptops that could access my sdcard lost sync w/ their devices while the other that did sync had no sdcard slot.  It was a technical clusterfuck tbh.  Had to listen to unfamiliar tracks via mediamonkey which sounds terrible.  It is better than the DACPort, but I'm not sure it's better than the DACPort LX > Leckerton UHA6S.  That remains to be seen as does it working w/ my phone.  A few concerns I have w/ Michael's approach atm.  I don't think they quite get the USB on the go spec and he seems to relate quality amplification as a mere function of distortion and gain only. 

That's dissappointing to hear about the 901 stock amp. Fiio has mentioned an upcoming X5 for later this year a few times. I assume its a step up from the X3. And glad I cancelled my m8 preorder.

Has anyone tried the Asus Vivo Tab?