Comdex Fall 2001: Picks and Pans

LAS VEGAS -- Giant American flags flying, security personnel frisking and poking, and people parading in unnecessary gas masks. No, not New York City, but Comdex 2001.

PCWorld.com's crack team braved it all and fanned out across Sin City to bring you back the best and worst of Comdex, 21st century style. We got the goods on the great, the near-great, and the not-even-close.

The somber tone in the country didn't keep the goofballs from strutting their stuff in Vegas, and our editors actually spotted pockets of cool technology--once they made it past security to the show floor. Come along for the ride.

First Glances

Geez, Guys!: E-mail firm Hanglro.com, promoting its MultiM-mail service, takes the cake on poor taste. To grab attention, the firm's booth workers wore oversize gas masks with signs pinned to their chests reading: "E-mail is protected from the anthrax," a gag that went over about as well as joke envelopes full of baby powder. --Tom Spring

Most Unavoidable Attention Grabber: In exchange for a 20-minute wait in line, you could take a Mercedes-Benz for a free spin around the Las Vegas Convention Center parking lot. The best part? Watching the guy picking up the flattened orange cones around the course. --Steve Bass

Most Welcome Change in Atmosphere: Who'd have thunk it? The show's general tone of dignity. Comdex this year generally seemed to be about technology products, not wild-and-wacky stunts, booth bimbos, and cheesy giveaways. The low-key tenor may have been in part a reaction to September 11, but whatever the reason, it was a pleasant change from past shows. --Harry McCracken

...Or Maybe Not: The numbers of booths not quite on point to the show's message were on the increase. If you needed a mechanical foot or back massage device, a muscle toner and rejuvenator gizmo, a posture improving foam mattress, an attorney or--get this--a comedian specializing in high-tech schtick, they were there. Hey, isn't this a computer show? --Steve Bass and Yardena Arar

News You Can Use

Most Interesting Hardware Prototype: Yeah, we all heard tons about Microsoft's push for Tablet PCs. But behind closed doors, Hewlett-Packard showed off an even more interesting possible future product: a convertible notebook with a huge 15-inch display. First, use it as regular notebook. Next, spin the display 180 degrees to use it as a presentation device, with keyboard facing away from the audience. Third, fold the display down over the keyboard and use it as a mega-size tablet PC. Finally, slide the unit into a vertical docking station and you have a desktop PC complete with LCD display. Cool! --Tom Mainelli

Well Done: The SD Memory Card pavilion was a model of what a well-thought-out trade show booth should be. Postage stamp-size SD cards are used to store up to 128MB of data, including music, images, and voice recordings. The power of the product is its interchangeability and the fact that more than 300 manufacturers, including big names like Canon, JVC, Palm, Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba have adopted it as a standard, in competition with Sony's Memory Stick. The group that put together the pavilion clearly understood that the card's real strength is its versatility and laid out the product displays of cameras, camcorders, handhelds, laptops, and audio players in a circle that made it very easy for visitors to get the message. --Ramon G. McLeod

Bye-Bye Bluetooth: Everybody's drooling over wireless connectivity, but the trick is getting there. Despite some security concerns, 802.11b seemed to be finding plenty of advocates at this year's show. However, the long-delayed Bluetooth seems to be teetering on oblivion, at least in the U.S. One notebook vendor executive pointed out that his company has stopped adding Bluetooth-ready hardware to its products because the technology has "missed its window of opportunity." --Tom Mainelli

Size Doesn't Matter: Imation's RipGo is a mini CD-RW burner and audio player all in one. Unlike many competing mini-CD players, not only can this compact device play back mini-CDs, but it also records to 8-cm CD-R/RW media. Each disc holds 180MB of data. The RipGo costs $399. --Melissa Perenson

Giddyup!: Next-generation wireless networks from Proxim, Intel, and others promise speeds of up to 54 megabits per second, while next-generation digital cellular networks should move data at speeds of up to 144 kilobits per second. We can't wait for full commercial deployment next year. --Denny Arar

Intel Targets Transmeta, Round Two: The chip giant unveiled a (kinda) new ultra-low-power processor with a matching chip set geared toward blade servers. It's just the latest strike by Intel against Transmeta, which had found some business selling its Crusoe chips into the same market. With Intel countering Transmeta's products in both mobile and server markets, it could make things tough for the upstart company as it tries to roll out its delayed Crusoe 5800 chip while mounting plans for two new chips next year. --Tom Mainelli

Big-Screen Browsing on a Handheld: PC-EPhone 2.0 combines a mobile phone and a Windows CE-based personal digital assistant with a full 640-by-480 color screen, letting you browse the Web without all the annoying scrolling required on smaller devices. Expected to sell for about $1000, the PC-EPhone comes with a tiny phone-like remote that you can use when you just want to make a phone call--that's so 20th century!. --Denny Arar