I was at CTIA last week pitching various column ideas to SlashGear Editor Vincent Nguyen, and he shot them down, one by one. An analysis of the Kindle vs. iPad? No, SlashGear has covered that more than once, and we’ll all be writing hands-on reports next week. How the digital home environment has changed? New columnist Ben Bajarin just used that theme as his debut for SlashGear. How I lived on loaner laptops, cellphones and 3G modems last week when our town was out of power? Too close to Michael Gartenberg’s recent column ontraveling with just a cellphone. Apparently, the big stuff is covered. So instead, I’m going to try to provide a look into how one analyst covers a trade show: a tech travelogue, of sorts.
CTIA Day -1: Arrive in Las Vegas a full day and a half early, as the day before the show is often full of trade shows and meetings. Not this year. I looked into moving to a later flight and spending another day with my family, but the flights were all overbooked. Discover that there are people coming to this town for vacations. Really? Who knew. Car rental place promises eternal damnation if I don’t take the extra insurance. Don’t take the extra insurance anyway.
Park in my usual spot in the Hilton’s North parking garage. Yes, I’m here often enough to have a usual spot. Strikes me that this is really sad. Laugh at the couple walking hand-in-hand trying to figure out what entertainment the Hilton offers (answer: none. They killed the Star Trek Experience and even Barry Manilow pulled up shop to moved to a rival venue). Check into hotel and start writing a report under embargo on Palm’sPre Plus and Pixi Plus coming to AT&T. Make mistake of turning on TV, get nowhere on the report.