I got a chance to go to Computex 2004 in Taipei on Saturday, June 5th.. its like Comdex or CeBIT back home.. its where a lot of computer industry manufacturers or distributors come out to display their new wares.. I used to follow the computer scene pretty closely.. upgrading my computer(s) every yeary or 2 years max.. but about 4 years ago, I kind of stopped caring.. at home, my desktop runs an AMD 1.4GHz.. aside from the obscene amount of heat it generates, it runs Win XP with 512mb just fine.. I’ve since jumped on the “notebook” bandwagon and am using an HP Pavilion ZD7000 with a 3.06GHz P4 and 512mb of memory.. being in Taiwan, the potential for portability outweighs the increased efficiency and speed from a full desktop.. anyhow, I went to the show anyway just to check it out.. I never really do anything on the weekends.. so it was kind of a treat..

At the show, there were tons of people pawning MP3 players.. lots of little companies trying to distribute re-branded OEM MP3 players.. you end up seeing every “style” of MP3 player at almost all of these booths.. [putting on MBA hat] sounds pretty lame.. the only time you can get away with this is if you are somehow able to differentiate your product from the other offerings.. the consumer needs to at least believe they are receiving something extra by purchasing this commodity from you rather than from your competitor.. since very few people in Taiwan believe in competing on “service”, they end up competing on price [taking off MBA hat].. another reoccuring theme, among motherboard manufacturers, was the fanless PC.. apparently, with everyone trying to keep their PC cool, they’ve added an ungodly amount of fans in the computer case.. even in my ancient Athlon 1.4, I had like 7 fans.. they are able to go fanless because of the extensive use of heatsinks and heat pipe technology.. pretty cool, I guess.. but I’d prefer that Intel and AMD, along with like nVidia and ATi, just make cooler running processors.. even if you don’t have a fan pushing the heat out of the case, the heat is going somewhere.. and thats usually in your office.. with two computers on our “office” at home, the temperature in that room must have been like 5-6 degrees hotter than anywhere else in the house..

Here are some pics from the show (yes, there were show ho’s at the show, but my co-worker was the one that had no shame in taking the pictures..):

heat sinks and heat pipes..

Kingston Technology show ho’s.. pic provided by co-worker
(they look like 14 year olds, huh?)

Asus’s NOS/VW engine display.. no idea how this relates to motherboards..

Show was next to Taipei 101, world’s tallest building,
but doesn’t look like it though.. not even in person

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