Quickee KBIS Review

Travel Disasters
American Airlines and weather issues put a deep crimp in many attendee's travels including your's truly.  How many missed the show entirely, we have no idea.  Show management, Trent & Company, claim registrations were up 5 - 10% on opening day.

Electrolux Hires Muscle to Protect "What" Exactly?
Electrolux's 6 or 7 member team of all black, universally massive, brown suited guards with secret service type coiled wire ear buds could not have been more polite.  I was much more intimidated by the cheerless angel of death managing the event.  Yes, I was caught in a trap, having run askew of the law of the booth, having been lulled into a false sense of security by a photographer freely and openly snapping away unmolested.  So I started to shoot too....but not for long, for I was to learn that I had NOT been watching a press photographer, but instead had taken the bait of a corporate photographer.  Give me a minute here............I just get so emotional when I...........when I re-live those humiliating few seconds.
Though not exactly strip searched, I was asked to delete the 5 photos I had taken in the booth, including the wide shot taken 30 feet outside the booth.
As for the booth itself......this was the first Electrolux booth that was not overly packed with a hodgepodge of mismatched products in a space too small and crowded to scratch your ear.  It was the first Electrolux booth with a reasonably attractive design theme.  The big guys always bring every product new or old in every size in every possible hue, but this Electrolux booth was a bit more restrained, and we don't mean the handcuffs they kept in the central interrogation room.
A Little Hint:  It is not necessary to bore us to death with 20 when 2 representative samples would do fine.  Focusing on the few is one thing LG gets.
UPDATE Apr 23:  Ours was not the only story of this kind.  Follow the link to see the first and possibly only photo ever taken and successfully retrieved from the Electrolux KBIS booth.  This person obviously took grave personal risks, and we are told crossed several alligator infested swamps at night to get this image to us and then to you.  Even now, experts in the field of photo-analysis are divining much from this image, and from them we will know much more of the plans and strategies behind Electrolux's porcelainized iron curtain.  Their first conclusion is that those cupcake-shaped devices are actually gamma-ray generators to disable our spy satellites. 
Dastardly!  PHOTO  

Other News

• GE launched a new line of pro style ranges and cooktops reportedly manufactured at GE's Mexico (JV/partner/subsidiary) Mabe, becoming the first pro line made in Mexico.  This marks the end of GE's sourcing arrangement with DCS.
• Siemens, the old Best Buy brand is now repositioned above Thermador.
• Missing from the Show
  • AGA, Blue Star, Caldera, Elmira, Equator, Fotile, Frigidaire, Grand Hall, Heartland, Jade, Samsung, Twin Eagles, Windster, Whirlpool
• New Brands to the Show:
  • Alywind, Blomberg, Atlan, Elica, Grotto Wine, Induc, Yosemite.  
• Of the several Chinese brands without a defined booth address, we were able to find only one:  Atlan, 
• Who had substantial booth growth without relying on pills or potions?  This is naked eye stuff, without the use of a ruler.
  • American, Duro, Kalamazoo, Kuppersbusch, Smeg, True
• -Metallo Arts displayed a rangehood with a price tag of $64,000

The Best of the Best of Show

• For Best of the Best, we are nominating the Thermador sensor cooktop which features simmer control, boil dry and boil over protection.  American's, having missed all the important classes in chemistry and physics, don't get that boiling is God's way of saying "No Mas, No Mas!!, the water isn't going to get any hotter.  While providing environmental benefits it also has several programs which could bring revolutionary functionality to the lowly cooktop.
  
• SEND US YOUR NOMINATIONS.  The final choice will be by reader poll.
• UPDATE Apr 17:  Monogram Pro Ranges
• UPDATE Apr 18:  SMEG 36" Dishwasher
• UPDATE Apr 28:  ASKO Dishwashers

Trends

• i-Pod type circular controls from Capital Range ovens, Haier laundry, and Siemens ovens.  Some better than others.
• LED lighting everywhere, LED blue lighting and indicators, LED light shining on knobs (GE Monogram, Lynx others), in refrigerators, LG, Liebherr
• French Door fridges with (2) freezer doors from LG, GE Monogram, Haier, Liebherr to match those already out from Sub Zero
• Mirrored surfaces from Fisher Paykel, Smeg, Fagor.  Thermador was there last year.
• Dry-wash clothing refreshing cycles using steam or mist from Bosch, LG to compete with Whirlpools Personal Valet unit.
• More colors, never enough colors.  Next year we hope to see Infra-Red.
• Dubious Environmental claims.  Why green engineer, when it is so much easier to print a green brochure.
• Induction Ranges from Diva de Provence, American Range, and prototypes from Bertazonni and Viking.  A blogger suggested that Electrolux also has one.
• New fridge drawers from Blomberg, Fisher Paykel, Viking added to those already out there from U-Line, Marvel, Sub-Zero etc etc etc.
• Chinese salesmen quietly cooking full Chinese lunches in their own booth...and not a one invited me.
• Material Cheapification with greater use of plastics and 430 stainless.  Probably everywhere considering 304 stainless cost.
• Red colored washers and dryer:  Everybody in laundry has red.

Swag Report (brands show the love for the important work the press does in repeating every word in the press releases)

• Dacor:  Continental breakfast.  No confirmation of gift but we have high hopes from the king of swag
• Sub Zero:  Full American breakfast + Mimosas, and a memory stick with SZ press information which is nice but doesn't really count as swag.
• Windcrest:  Body and Bath kit of bubbles, soapy stuff, a foot massage thingy, and other tingly stuff to make me silky, slinky and unbearably attractive.
• Electrolux:  Bose in-ear headphones.  $100 at Amazon.  They do nothing for me, but my wife with the Nano claims this swag was worth my humiliation.
• Fisher & Paykel:  4PM Happy Hour.  After 10 hours of the forced march through all the appliances the world has to offer, this was the best swag of all.
• Update May 1:  Perlick:  A novelty pen with magnetic donut shaped stand.......which arrived in the mail
• Update June 15:  We receive our Dacor swag.  Lovely BBQ tools.