Courtesy of LG

IFA Berlin, the self-described “world’s largest trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances,” was held last week and Techeye was naturally on the scene. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, IFA is kind of like the better-known International Consumer Electronics Show, although it’s a little less full of itself and a little more full of bratwurst.

The event is never boring, but this year we got a bit more exercise than usual. Ok, that doesn’t necessarily mean much, since we usually get no exercise at all. So you’ll just have to trust us when we say our legs haven’t moved so fast since the time when Techeye was 12 years old and we tried to impress the girls at fat camp by setting a treadmill to “roadrunner.”

Here’s what happened: arriving at the Messe Berlin Exhibition Grounds last week we politely murmured the one phrase we memorized from our handy German phrasebook – “Guten tag, Herr Affengesicht” – to the no-necked security thugs manning the entrance.

It turns out that “Herr Monkeyface” is not an acceptable form of address when dealing with der no-necked. After a brief argle-bargle at the front door, Techeye managed to sprint through approximately half of the exhibition before the guards caught up and forcibly ejected us from the building. Still, it was time enough to get a good impression of the zeitgeist pervading this year’s IFA.

And what zeitgeist was that? Put simply: 3D über alles.

Yes, there were a few odd, forward-looking exhibitors like Haier, which had prototypes of a brainwave-controlled TV and a “transparent organic TV” on show, but practically everyone else was hawking gadgets with 3D functionality crammed into them.

LG (www.lg.com) was a prime example. The Korean electronics giant had 3D TVs, phones and even a quirky bit of software called the 3D Game Converter, which allegedly adds a bit of depth to 2D games. The thing that caught our eye, though, was the Optimus 3D, which LG is calling the “world’s first tri-dual and full 3D smartphone.”

Uh … what? Bear with us here. The “tri-dual” part refers to the phone’s architecture, which boasts a 1 GHz dual-core, dual-channel processor as well as a dual memory set-up.

Taken altogether, that’s supposed to boost computing power significantly, though some early reports indicate performance (particularly when it comes to the battery) may not live up to the hype.

As for the 3D aspect, the phone offers a glasses-free experience, and that’s great until the novelty wears off, which is after about 10 minutes. But the Optimus 3D’s stereoscopic cameras are interesting, we’ll admit. We might even buy the phone just for the chance to torture our co-workers with creepy 3D photos of our offspring caught in the “mid-nosepick pose” so characteristic of four-year-olds.

The Optimus 3D, which runs a somewhat dated version of Android OS, costs about £500.

The only other product which Techeye had time to scrutinize before our unceremonious departure from this year’s IFA was the Soma Stand from XtremeMa (www.xtrememac.com). This is a pyramid-shaped speaker dock for – as the company’s name implies – Apple products.

There’s not a whole lot else to say about the Soma Stand, except that it folds up a bit if you want to transport it and is expected to cost around €100 when it goes on sale next month. Oh, and one other thing – don’t bother trying to dent a German security guard’s head with it. It’s not heavy enough.

Ever tried to impress the girls at fat camp and ended up with a mouthful of treadmill instead? Let us know: techeye.wbj@gmail.com