Gadget Show Live ‘I’m Not Over-Excited At ALL!’

18th April 2013 Adam Rayner

OK folks, Rayner here, with his cub reporter Mr. Simon King on his second attempt. He’s good on the tech but a bit embarrassing on the need to remove references to how impressed he was that I knew peopleand bless ‘˜im, his pictures were simply not production quality this time I know this is the Internet but I worked on Max Power, Fast Car, Top Gear, CAR, errm Exchange & Mart (I effing swear it’s true) and there are differences in production, words and images, between a forum post and item you might even pay for at WH Smiths or on your Kobo, Kindle, what have you TA magazine remains free, as it runs on a wickedly clever content management system and because of the support from the likes of JVC (our newest) and all the ones that matter. Anyway, I have perforce had to re-use some shots from my report, as well as re-post the vids he was in. Forgive ‘˜im the tardiness after the eventhe does do a proper grown up job as well
What follows, is his report:
The Gadget Show. Whatever your opinion of the program or its presenters, you can’t argue with the presence they have in the UK. Along with the massive competitions they run as part of the show, there’s the magazine and the absolutely huge Gadget Show Live event. Now in its fifth year, GSL is manna from heaven for the techno geek. I’ve been a few times and really enjoyed it, but even if you take a day off work it’s pretty busy.
Unless you get a call from Rayner with a press pass for what they call ‘˜Professional Day’, when it is by comparison, dead civilised.
GSL is now one of the UK’s biggest platforms for consumer electronics manufacturers to launch their wares. In this belt-tightened era, it’s heartening to see a show as extravagant going on. With big stands from manufacturers, all the kit on display and quite simply the whole world of consumer electronics under one roof.
So, with the ink barely dry on my new Talk Audio business cards, it’s off to Birmingham we go.
We’re obviously here to hit the car audio brands but it’s difficult not to get side-tracked by some of the other stands. Damson Audio (whose Twist portable speaker Adam has reviewed before) have taken the expensive-but-ruddy-well-worth-it approach of building a soundproof room on their stand to best show off their new Oyster speaker. I can understand why they’re so proud it’s a nice product with respectable sound quality and good build. But I can’t help but worry that they’re up against some very big boys in the rechargeable Bluetooth speaker market. It’s unique enough to stand out and they’re offering a fourteen-day money back guarantee, which is a great idea and should help them build momentum.
I noobishly didn’t take any pictures of the Parrot stand at MEN Expo last month but on reflection I’m glad I didn’t. Trade stands are often hastily thrown together and I’m glad I didn’t expose Parrots ‘˜functional’ offering to the wider world when their GSL offering gives a much better flavour of what the company is about and the level of commitment to their products. The full Asteroid line-up was live and available for play with 3G connections to get the full experience. I even caught another attendee later on using Maps on the Asteroid Smart to figure out how to get home. Put your hand in your pocket and buy one chap you obviously need it!
The AR Drone show was extremely good occasional hiccups, but these things cost less than £500 and are just about the coolest man-gadget around I covet one deeply. Watching four of them do acrobatics no aerial display team could possibly hope to match was a real crowd draw.

http://youtu.be/SQJx1dtDGpg
Alpine’s stand was also at least three times the size of the one from MEN, with the freshly-updated Golf R32 along with the Audi. I took the ICS-X7 for a spin to see if it passed my MirrorLink test. i.e. does it work off the bat without too much buggering about? It passed with flying colours and I was soon exposing my often questionable musical taste to GSL.

I took a few better pictures of the new TuneIt! compatible decks that were set out to illustrate the lovely display on these decks.

Judging by the number of people you see driving along with their nose in their iPhone, the ability to safely get notifications from Facebook will be a great selling point for these decks. From summer, a software update will use Text-To-Speech to actually read the notification to you and you’ll be able to like it with a simple button press. That, along with all the configuration functions we were shown at MEN Expo.

Next up is JVC. Car Audio was only part of their GSL stand there’s a 4k projector demo that we sadly didn’t have time to get back to for a look-see along with a large selection of cameras. Front and centre is JVC’s contender for the action camera market currently being dominated by GoPro. The Addixxion is a simpler proposition than the GoPro rather than a high base price and umpteen add-on options; it’s all in the box for less than £300. I’m thinking of two or three potential uses for this (motorbike, roller coasters, airsofting) that Adam seems fascinated by, so there should be a review on the way at some point. It runs for four hours on a full charge so it could make a pretty decent trip recorder for the daily commute. My personal favourite feature is the ability to use your smartphone as a remote shutter, which ties in nicely with the way many consumer electronics manufacturers are finally getting some of the more exciting prospects of people owning a smartphone.
http://youtu.be/vu0L71TAF7w
Next door to JVC, Pioneer are having it. Large. I’m not too well up on my house DJ’s this is well illustrated by Adz looking at me slightly gone out when I ask who ‘˜that dude’ is currently spinning on the Pioneer rig at tasty volume. One Mr Brandon Block apparently, who is right at home being the centre of attention of a bunch of photographers.

Following on from the MEN Expo, Pioneer are finally ready to unveil the next generation of AppRadio the SPH-DA110. Not only is this new AppRadio iPhone 5 ready out of the box but the AppRadio technology is spreading through the double-DIN range as a additional feature. Some models use analogue video, some use digital but the net effect is very similar. Whilst MirrorLink is standard across manufacturers you are limited to whatever Sony, Samsung or Nokia deem suitable for you to use on the move. This is pretty much limited to Music, Calls and Navigation. Pioneer want to go further than this and have opened the doors to the AppRadio developers portal to enable third parties to put their driver-centric apps on the dash. It’s a different approach but one that Pioneer are clearly committed to.
Via some sweet trikes and the Overclockers girls, we end up at Bowers & Wilkins. Slap bang in the middle of the stand is £108k’s worth of Maserati Quattroporte. The ‘˜Rayner Effect’ once again works wonders on the velvet ropes and we’re in. I’m in the back but this is actually where I want to be this is a car designed as much for passengers as drivers and I’m interested to hear if the rear stage in this luxury land yacht is worth a damn. The £3.5k B&W upgrade for this beast is a mere drop in the ocean for most of its potential customers and although I’ve never heard the stock system, this is a revelation in OEM audio. It’s open, natural and even when sitting in the back has an enviable stage. The bass is a little prominent for OEM but it times well. I cheekily ask can we drop the slow stuff on the demo iPod for summat off my USB bean. On with 10cc’s ‘˜Dreadlock Holiday’ (one of my reference tracks) and I’m even more impressed. This is only a 256Kbps MP3 and I’m hearing a truckload of subtlety and a surprising airiness. It’s over fifteen minutes before we get out of the car and make with the pictures. I can’t say how this car compares to the Audi A7 but it’s got to be a close run thing. It’s worth noting that the Mazza was actually slightly more effective at sound isolation than Damson’s dedicated room. Madness.
By now the day is winding down and it’s time to head home. We bump in to Adam’s old friend LJ on the Citroen stand and spend a few more minutes nattering about her Nova red-top before we finally call it a day. We’ve seen pretty much the entire spectrum of Car Audio from entry-level mechless head units to a car that costs almost as much as my house and sounds stunning with no additional effort required. Despite the significantly smaller aftermarket market I’m optimistic that all the major players are working flat out to tempt people in to upgrading their OEM kit. Failing that, they’re actually getting in to OEM in the first place. Either way, it’s all 12v goodness.

See all the shots we used from the show, in their very own gallery as a slide show by clicking this link:
link