Consumer Electronics Show 2011 Preview

The Tom’s Guide team arrives in Las Vegas this week to get our grubby hands all over gadgets so new that they still carry a faint whiff of a pre-production factory floor. Our goal is to make a beeline for the products that you’re interested in, and get as much hands-on time as possible. We want to give you an accurate feel for whether a product has the potential to be the Next Big Thing, whether it excites us because of its design, interface, or feature set, or even whether it’s simply a me-too product or a dud. And, as we all know from experience observing the gadget world, a large percentage of the products on display will never make it to store shelves. Part of the fun is guessing which ones will actually be available for purchase within 2011. Read on for our best guesses about the biggest trends and expectations in eight main product categories for CES 2011.