Sony. Experience More: party night

So the big Sony. Experience More party was on Friday night, and by all accounts there was quite a Gizmodo crew on the scene. I managed to drag myself down there to catch the action, and all up it made for a good night out. A tag with my name on it wasn’t there, so I was rather incognito – though in my jetlag haze it was probably a good thing as I would have come off as a crazy person.

I managed to nab some pics with a phone after forgetting my camera (again, I blame the jetlag). Jump the moat to see the pics and my take on a few of the featured attractions. Highlight? Had to be the little OLED TVs, though everyone wished they had a price tag, however crazy it may have been.

Hope those who made it along had a good night!
Sony decided to throw in some direct comparisons at the show, including this Bravia versus “competition” (an unmarked Samsung M8) spot, with a CRT broadcast monitor between the two showing what was the ‘correct’ image. Seemed to be the difference showed the trouble with dynamic contrast on the Samsung, though the disparity could certainly have been made less stark through some judicious settings management on the Samsung. More telling to my eye was the motion blur I was seeing on the Bravia that was not replicated on the Samsung… or was that just my fuzzy brain?

They also had a list of yes/no check boxes comparing Sony AVCHD Handycams to the JVC ‘Full HD’ 1920 x 1080 HD1 video camera. I didn’t get a shot of that one (sorry), but its claims were pretty leading. Can’t dispute that Sony’s ClearVid CMOS sensor is very good, though. No direct comparisons on offer in this department, however.

The crowds thronged around the OLED panels. Cute, sexy, stylish, ultra-thin. And contrast to sell a lung for. As mentioned earlier, despite quite a few on show there was no price point offered. Damn prototypes. Look, but you can’t have!

A huge range of Bravia updates were on show, with a few new lines delivering something for everyone (I’ll serve up more details on all the lines tomorrow). It was a good set up for wandering the floor and getting a good sense of how each line differed from the next and how you ‘get what you pay for’. A 70-inch XBR series model running at around $70k was the absolute opposite of those OLEDs…

Lovely little VAIO beasties here, with a 32GB solid state drive model on show too. One of the Sony crew showed off the boot speed difference between the hard drive and the solid state models as an example of what you’re paying for (more than just far greater shock protection). The boot difference to full Vista readiness must have been a good 20+ seconds.

Lots of tasty candy being made live at the venue on the night. Sony do a great job of providing interesting live action to point cameras at while testing their gear – last year you guys missed out on a nude model being painted during the show.