A growing trend seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is mobile television. Or rather, let’s call it portable television. Television sets in the coming year will be made to be portable; sets now can be relocated easily. Sharp, who has been in the business for 100 years already, showed off one of these new breed of television sets at CES. The Aquos Freestyle is a regular living room television — the difference with this unit is that it has handles, so it can be lifted and relocated to any room in the house, even outside.
The slim TV is only a 20-incher, so it remains fairly portable. The television tuner is actually in the base of the unit, and it has built-in Wi-Fi. More importantly, the television can stream media from a DLNA server. No need to plug in because the television runs on a battery that lasts for two hours. You can plug in, however, when you decide to settle down in a particular location.
This new market of portable television sets slides somewhere into existing mobile-TV options. Obnoxiously, smartphones are still the most convenient for watching TV anywhere from the couch to the bathroom. Tablets have larger screens, and laptops are still are prime choice for non-location-specific entertainment viewing.
Now, a lightweight portable flat screen could be the next step as companies like Sharp tie in to the whole local network and focus on Wi-Fi and media servers, as opposed to being followed around by a cable TV cord.
No ship date was specified at CES, but it’s worth keeping an eye on this new breed of portable, or should we call them mobile, television sets.
