LAS VEGAS — Smartphones, what smartphones? Samsung, the world’s smartphone king by shipment numbers, unveiled a bevvy of new products during its presser at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday.
But only of those was a new smartphone — the tablet-like Galaxy Note — and that was officially premiered at a separate AT&T event.
That didn’t stop Samsung from wowing its crowd of assembled reporters and observers online with new motion and voice-controlled 3D TV sets and a washing machine controlled by a smartphone app.
“We stand alone as the only company capable of connecting all the components of a consumer’s electronic life,” said BK Yoon, president of Samsung’s Consumer Electronics Division, in a prepared statement. “From TVs to phones, tablets to PCs, cameras to appliances, we are enabling meaningful connections between them all. Our promise is that you will share and enjoy content across all these devices, easily, anywhere, anytime.”
Indeed, Samsung executives took to the stage for over an hour attempting to convey just how focused the South Korean electronics maker was on its users and their experiences, showcasing a lineup of 15 new distinct new products.
Among those were three new TV models, all of which offered Samsung’s “Smart Interaction” — a platform featuring gesture and voice controls and facial recognition.
The new TVs included the 55-inch Samsung Super OLED TV, the Samsung UNES8000 Smart LED TV and the Samsung PNE8000 Plasma Smart TV.
Samsung didn’t spend any time highlighting their 3D capabilities though, instead preferring to focus on the innovative new control inputs. As Samsung’s accompanying documentation explained about
“Thanks to a built-in HD camera and dual-microphones, consumers may simply say “Hi TV” to turn on voice control, speak “Web Browser” to get online, and browse and select results or increase the volume by just pointing a hand.”
The voice control in particular is of interest because Apple is reported to developing its own, much-hyped new TV set featuring voice controls based on and similar to the “Siri” personal voice assistant available on the iPhone 4S.
Further inviting comparisons to Apple, Samsung promoted a series of new TV apps — applications like those found on the iPhone and Android phones, but scaled-up specifically to take advantage of the full-screen real-estate.
Forthcoming applications for the Samsung Apps store, which was first launched at CES two years ago, include the popular Rovio game Angry Birds and The Daily, News Corporation’s hotly-debated iPad-based publication (Full Disclosure: also my former employer, though I had no prior knowledge of this launch).
The launch of The Daily on the Samsung Apps store is notable because it marks the publication’s first foray into an app store outside of the Apple App Store and Facebook.
Though Samsung appeared to be most proud of its three new TV sets, it was a much homier gadget that stole the show: a new “eco-friendly” washing machine that could be controlled by a smartphone app.
The WF457 Front Load Washing Machine is like something out of the Jetsons, with an 8-inch LCD touchscreen and a wireless card, allowing it to connect to Samsung smartphones using the “AllShare Control App.”
“I am strangely enticed by the smartphone controlled washing machine,” tweeted PC Magazine‘s Sascha Segan.
“I think Samsung is really pushing the boundaries of reality with smartphone controlled washing machines,” tweeted Ben Woods, an analyst at CC Insights.
As Samsung put it in a borderline sexist release explaining the new device:
“Consumers can, via a wireless router and a smartphone application, monitor cycle selections, remaining time and finishing alerts, as well as remotely start or pause the washer – a huge benefit to busy moms who spend time running back and forth from the laundry room trying to estimate when the load is done.”
The product also supposedly offers “25 percent shorter cycle time compared with conventional washers,” and has an actual price and release date, so vaporware it’s not. The washer will cost a cool $1,699 and be available in the U.S. in “Spring 2012.”
Samsung executives also took time out of the presentation to showcase the Galaxy Note — a 5.3 inch screen device running Android 2.3 Gingerbread that blurs the boundaries between smartphones and tablets due to its obscenely large screen, which is designed to work in conjunction with an accompanying stylus. Neither Samsung, nor AT&T — which earlier premiered the device at a separate CES event, announced pricing or availability dates for the device.
Also shown-off was the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7-inch tablet, first unveiled at the IFA trade show in Berlin in September, boasting Super AMOLED screen technology. The big news was that it is coming to the U.S. some unspecified time in 2012, on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Pricing has yet to be announced.
The full list of Samsung products unveiled Monday at CES can be seen on Samsung’s website for the show.
