It is the worst of high tech shows and it is the best of high tech shows. As we said yesterday, Comdex 2003 will go down as a bust - for Comdex organizers, that is. But many vendors were on hand with some truly innovative gear, although most of the best stuff is found off-site at nearby hotels: HP's first Athlon64-based PC, NEC's 20" LCD monitor, an advanced Internet telephony phone and more. No crowds to fight through, nice weather, great gear: what else could you ask for in a trade show, especially one that is probably just a warm up for the Consumer Electronics Show next January?

HP's Athlon64 Debutante Ball

HP's first system based on the Athlon64 processor.

Earlier this week THG reviewed a healthy crop of mobos based on AMD's 64 bit Athlon64, and we talked about how the supply is short and how the waiting list is long. But if you're lazy and want to spend an almost paltry $1,200, you can now buy the first major OEM PC to feature AMD's much talked about 64 bit processing power. The chipset alone, the Athlon64 3200, costs $417 to buy separately. For $800 more, HP offers, with - of course - all OS and Windows bundled software already loaded, 1.0 GB of PC3200 400 MHz memory, a 250 GB hard drive, Nvidia's GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and 802.11g wireless LAN capabilities in December. So you're lazy; you don't want to build your own system and want to see for yourself what Athlon's 64 bit desktop computing is all about. You don't have to tell anyone.