Well, having spent what feels like the best part of a year (or so) in Berlin attending my first IFA conference, I can well and truly say I've had enough of big-screen TVs.

In fact, I doubt the business with customs and the companies accused of patent infringement was actually that much to do with legality... it's more likely some members of the public just posing as customs officers in order to reduce the amount of TVs on display.

Don't get me wrong, I like a good high-definition set as much of the next person, but when there is literally over a thousand of the things (and none of them showing anything good) then I get a bit bored.

Plastic sheets

Actually, I lie about there being nothing good on. On Wednesday, which was supposed to be the first official day of the show (even though NOBODY seemed to be set up and ready at this point... it was dust sheets and polythene plastic EVERYWHERE) I sneaked into one of the halls.

And one of the Chinese manufacturers (I won't say which... because I can't remember the name) was showing something that wouldn't have looked out of place on Channel Five at around 10pm.

I'm all for high definition, and I'm even more for it now I've seen a scantily clad lady (and I mean REALLY scantily clad) walking up and down a beach wearing not much other than sand. In full 1080p with 100Hz motion processing and a wide colour gamut in a thin bezelled device, of course.

Best presentation

Now, on to the prize for the best presentation of the show. And this is something I have been looking forward to talking about for some time now.

Samsung and the forthcoming X360 notebook, step right up. Having made me walk all the way across the show and up three flights of stairs (OK, not your fault) to get to the conference, I was forced to watch 40 minutes of self-promotion before you even MENTIONED the product.


That's right. 40 minutes where people forgot their lines, where the question 'What is a brand?' was posed and never really answered, where Samsung somehow managed to compare itself to Madonna (!) and also kept referring to itself as in the Champion's League of manufacturers, while showing pictures of Chelsea football club in the background.

We get it, you sponsor them.

But if you think about it, you're technically saying you're in the competition but never really look like winning it, generally falling at the semi-finals to a more prestigious rival... and the one time you do get a chance to win it, you slip in front of goal.

Not the best synergy there really, when you think about it?

Suspense

I could go on, but I won't. And I'd like to point out the X360 looks like a decent piece of kit, so please don't go off and think about not buying one because of this. Though the unveiling itself was hilarious, with two female models wiggling the cloth holding the laptops in a half-hearted manner, as if they were just told to 'create suspense'.

But Samsung, nobody was fooled when you showed a video of 'average customers' (read: models with scripts) who all coincidentally wanted the same things in a laptop while all having super-cool jobs (think DJ, young salesman, fashion designer and you get the picture).