With the Consumer Electronics Show 2008 winding down and the flood of product announcements over for another year, I’ve been wondering what it all means for Windows users. How much will the gee-whiz stuff announced at CES enhance your overall computing experience?

In some cases, the answer is obvious.

New microprocessors from Intel and AMD, for example, make computers faster, allowing you to do more tasks simultaneously—or ones you never could before, such as editing high-definition video on a laptop. Toshiba, Sony, and HP all announced laptops with the new Intel Penryn family of Core 2 Duo mobile processors, which use less power while offering more speed. Other mobile PC makers will no doubt follow.

It’s less obvious, on the other hand, how new high-definition TVs, handheld gadgets, and hundreds of other related devices at CES that don’t fit inside a computer will benefit PC owners.  But they will. Computers are becoming more and more intertwined with consumer electronics.  More people are using their PCs to record and playback video on their HDTV, send music around their house, make phone calls, and do other things perform other tasks once not considered computing tasks.

Here’s a look at some of the products at CES I think will have the biggest impact on PC users in the near future:

• Bigger, higher-resolution computer displays, such as the new Dell 30-inch UltraSharp 3008WFP. Big flat-panel monitors are going mainstream. Forget 22 inches, soon two-foot screens will be the standard. I bought a 24-inch Dell UltraSharp model last year and have been very impressed. Many large-screen monitors were announced at CES, including some bargains under $400. But look to the high end for what’s coming: Dell’s 3008WFP is the company’s second-generation 30-incher. It’s pricey at $1,999, but the previous model (the 3007WFP) is available for $600 less, making Dell one of the few companies selling more than one 30-inch model. I’ll bet these drop below $1,000 before long.
• Faster graphics cards and chips—especially in mobile PCs such as the massive new HP Pavilion HDX. This 20-inch laptop now comes with a powerful Nvidia GeForce 8800M graphics processor, which should satisfy all but the most demanding gamers.  Laptop owners once had to settle for “business graphics” most of the time. That’s changing. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel now offer some of their fastest 3D graphics chips for mobile PCs as well as desktops. The new ATI HD Mobility Radeon 3000 series from AMD is one example.
• Solid state drives (SSD). I touched on this in my previous CES post. But these futuristic drives—like the new 72GB model from SanDisk—are the most obvious and dramatic enhancements coming to PCs.  Laptop owners will likely benefit the most. Because they have no moving parts, SSDs are faster, more rugged, and use less power than conventional hard drives. They’re still pricey, but that should change as capacities jump. Several models are already available in the 72 to120GB range.
• Better-looking case designs for both desktop and mobile PCs, such as the slick new Lenovo laptops (pictured above). Unimportant, you say? Well, for many people looks do matter—a lot. Why else would so many people be so obsessed with the design of Apple’s latest Macs? PC makers want to get in on the design action, too. Microsoft even took part, holding a PC fashion show.
• Bigger, better, cheaper flat-panel HDTVs. CES was awash in plasma and LCD TVs this year—devices that just get better and more affordable each year. Now next-generation OLED TVs are on the way, which are spectacularly thin and beautiful. As more people’s homes go high-def, it’s natural that the living room is where they’re going to want to enjoy all their PC-stored photos, video and web content. More people will start connecting their HDTVs to their PCs, either directly or through a home network or some sort of Media Center extender device such as the Xbox 360. At CES, companies were already showing off a host of gadgets to make that link easier, including many new wireless routers and Media Center extenders.

<John Swenson>