Introduction

COMEX 2008 is here for four days so let us take a look at what is in store for the consumers besides the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected to turn out.

This year the show occupies over 300,000 square feet of exhibit space and you'll be having to navigate all that space over 5 levels. Spread out on those 5 levels are more than 800 exhibitors. Look out for extra special Show offers, good bargains, not so good bargains and a good workout if you really maneouvre yourself through all the floors and exhibitors.

Last years COMEX 2007 saw a record attendance of 700,000 visitors over four days. If the numbers are like they were last year with a 5 to 10 percent increase you can expect a lot of delays getting in or out Suntec. Prepare for a fair amount of shoulder rubbing when you get there.

Those are record numbers for sure and knowing that do consider taking public transport. Don't worry if you plan to purchase that big 50-inch High Definition LCD TV because they will surely deliver it and set it up for you in your home. Check out the parking lot availability signs (they are great time savers and will help you save your petrol by avoiding the long parking lot queues.

A great battle of words came about in Forums recently about parents and their strollers. My recommendation (not that I am siding non-stroller group) is for parents with young children that needs a stroller, leave the strollers behind. Let the daddies have a day to himself to browse without the ball and chain around his ankle. I speak from experience and have always left the toddler at home or with mommy while I went shopping.

So, without further rambling let's walk the exhibition floors.

Gauntlet Running & Queues

Exhibitions are always the same with the exhibitors all vying for your hard earned dollar. So, exhibitors hire student promoters to help and encourage buyers. The promoters queue up just before an entrance, before and after the escalators and then bombard people with flyers as they have to walk on by to get to their destination. This reminded me of an old Clint Eastwood movie, The Gauntlet.

When you are as big as SingTel and StarHub with crazy promotions enticing current customers and vying for new customers, you are going to have long snaking queues. So, if you haven't ever gone for one of the Broadband or Mobile Plan subscriptions be prepared for a long and patient wait.

SingTel's and StarHub's huge LED boards displaying queue numbers.

Even at approximately 3pm on the first day, parking lots were non-existence and the 4 meter wide walkways were jammed.

Notebooks and Netbooks

The Centrino2 notebooks are here and we take a look at some of the newest models as well as the growing trend for a Net-book. ASUS was on hand with two booths displaying notebooks and netbooks. A little later to the game of notebooks and netbooks is MSI (Wind), Axioo (Pico), Lenovo (U110) and Acer (Aspire One).

Not exactly a Centrino2 because the Sony's don't have the full Wi-Fi support for Centrino2 certification but they are using Montevino processors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEC has been quiet for a while since their S9100 which didn't really make an impact because they were targeting corporate users.

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Netbooks are among us...

You just have to see and touch the Lenovo's red outer casing. It sure beats skinning.

They are the earliest to break into the market and have many makes and models to choose from - some with solid state hard drives but limited capacity and others with larger capacity but regular mechanical hard drives. Take your pick...

A new kid on the block. I overheard that they are giving away two battery packs at Comex. You get the standard 3-Cell that will last about two hours and when the stocks arrive you can get at no additional charge the 6-cell which will give you about four hours. So, if you have both you can probably last the whole day without hogging the AC mains at your local fast food joint or coffe shop.

LCD TV and Picture Frames

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Picture Frames

It is an interesting looking docking station for iPod's. You get speakers and the iPod docking for playback of your music and videos. It will also charge your iPod and if your iPod is missing in action just drop in a SD card or MemoryStick because has a built-in player and li-ion battery.

The Formula One sponsors have been big on LCD picture frames. Their product line keeps expanding. I had always thought the best picture frame anyone could get would be a super-sized 32-inch or 50-inch monster to hang on the wall with a media player plugged in. If it were blended into the wall you could even change the 'frames' and put whatever picture you wanted on display with a sequenced timer come slideshow. Maybe this would be a nice project...

Digital SLR and HD Camcorders

Nikon and Canon are always out to capture more market share from each other. This time around we see Canon with their newbie Digital SLR (D-SLR) the EOS1000 to entice Point and Shoot users looking to upgrade. Nikon has also dropped prices of their lower end models bringing D-SLR's below the $ 1k price point. At the same time Nikon went high end with the D700. Olympus was on hand showing their E Series, take a look at the E420 for a very compact D-SLR.

 

High Definition (HD) digital video recording - the next step in realising the potential of the High Definition LCD or Plasma purchases. Yes you can subscribe to StarHub HD and watch BluRay and HD-DVD movies but nothing beats DIY amateur footage. Sony, Canon and Panasonic have devices to fulfill your needs. Take note however that HD camcorders record in AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) format and to edit you'll need an application that supports direct encoding like Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio or Avid Xpress. Anyway, that is a whole other story that we can touch on another time. Take a look at some of the offerings.

 

Innovation

It is always nice to visit an exhibition and find new things.

HP's super-sized touchscreen is the first to incorporate gestures like that found on the new touch screen interfaced mobile phones. HP wrote completely new applications that make use of the touchscreen functionality. In addition you can still use the touchscreen to navigate Windows and applications. It is especially handy and useful for Windows Vista Media Centre.

 

What is the significance of DLNA? Well DLNA is Digital Living Network Alliance and it makes your digital living easier when it comes to interoperability and connectivity between all your digital appliances.

 

 

 

This little recorder could be a winner for all those enthusiasts that want to capture their moment in history when they break all the bones in their body trying to do stunts that should be done by a professional. It is just the thing people will use to record and show on YouTube or Amazing Videos. The only drawback is that this model currently only supports up to 2GB SDCards, no SDHC cards or greater capacity for longer recordings.

 

Babes

This year there were not so many scantily clad promoters handing out flyers. They are most often the centre of attraction for the digital camera exhibitors to showcase their new digital shooters. This was the case for Sony. There were many promoters.

 

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Punks Hunks (for the babes reading this page)

Others Gallery

   

  

 

 

 

 

 

 Putting 4GB of RAM into a notebook that is using 32-Bit Windows OS is not really a selling point or is it? To the uninitiated they won't know and later will ring up and ask, "Why is it you sold me 4GB but I only see 3GB, did you not tell me all there is to know...?"