How many months have I used my new Samsung C7000 LED TV? Just three months after it was installed on my wall, my 55-inch wonder is looking a little dated next to some of the new TV sets on show here at IFA Berlin.

In particular, the LG LEX8, which I got a bit of hands-on with at the LG bloggers’ forum, on the sidelines of the electronics expo here in Germany.

At just 8.8mm thin, this TV looks like a painting when placed in front of a wall. Unlike my Samsung TV, which is lit by LEDs on the edge of the screen, the LG LEX8 is lit with a full panel of LEDs, which LG calls Full LED (or Direct LED to neutrals).

With all the lights in place of just ones at the edge, the belief is that details on an image are more precise. To be honest, I really like the image on the LEX8, during demos here, but I’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference on the spot here. Perhaps a Black Knight Blu-ray disc might help.

More interestingly, how does LG fit all these lights on such a slim chassis? It has what it calls Nano LED, which basically uses a thin film in front of the lights. The film has tiny “holes” which helps disperse the lights in a regular, precise manner that is supposed to offer better image quality.

LG has not revealed any prices for Singapore here, though it is expected to cost more than the previously top-end, thin-edge LG Infinia LX9500, which is already crazy expensive (S$5,700 for a 47-incher).

Just in case you got the cash on the LEX8, the skinny screen can be hung on the wall, though this would require a separate AV cable to connect to the input box (not unlike Samsung’s top-end C8000 and C9000).

Now that contrast ratio and “black” levels have become too high to have any real attraction or meaning on paper, TV makers seem to have seized on another craze – slimness.

At this year’s ongoing IFA electronics show in Berlin, Korean manufacturers, in particular, are showing off future TVs that are as thin as a piece of paper.

The slimmest screens I’ve seen so far are LG’s OLED TVs on display here, which measure just 2.9mm. Yes, that’s the thickness of a piece of paper.

For an idea of what OLED screens are capable of, just check out upmarket smartphone screens, like the Samsung Galaxy S or Google Nexus One – they both use some form of OLED technology and are sharp, bright and very thin.

So far, what’s shown here at IFA are just demos and not actual shipping units. The LG folks here say that the technology is still too expensive to be used to manufacture on a large scale.

Plus, at their current performance, these OLED skinny screens are still not onpar with current LCD/LED screens in terms of picture quality.

When will that paper-thin screen appear in your living room? It would not be earlier than the next three years at least, say the engineers here.

The biggest bet for TV makers this year – 3D – is taking longer to take off than expected, despite fast becoming a mainstream feature, said Korean electronics giant LG, at the IFA electronics show in Berlin, Germany.

Sales have been slower than anticipated, due to high prices and a lack of 3D content to watch on these newfangled TVs that started shipping earlier this year, said the number two TV maker.

“It will be mainstream (in future), but sales have been slow so far,” said LG’s vice-president for marketing for home entertainment, K. S. Lee, at a blogger forum, on the sidelines of the yearly electronics expo.

Avatar, arguably the most popular 3D movie so far, is only to be out in discs in November, he pointed out, adding that consumers were waiting to see more 3D content before splurging on a new 3D-enabled TV set.

Another problem, he said, was the need to wear clunky 3D goggles. “Imagine watching the World Cup for 90 minutes… it’s painful.”

On a more positive note, though, he added that glasses will be made lighter and more comfortable in future, and with more content, users might be more encouraged to take up the new technology.

LG is expected to ship 25 million LCD TVs (including LED TVs) and 4 million plasma TVs, making it the number two TV maker after fellow Korean electronics maker Samsung.

(NOTE: Look out for more IFA updates from this goondu, as he checks out the halls a little belatedly at the yearly home electronics fest in Berlin)

As the World Cup got underway last month, I finally succumbed to a long-suppressed itch to buy a new TV – one that could be mounted on the wall to free up my TV console and one which provided better contrast and clarity over my entry-level Full HD screen.

Thus began a long afternoon at Audio House, where I tested and re-tested several TVs, changed my mind a few times, before finally settling on a 55-inch Samsung C7000 (UA55C7000WM).

The C7000 is part of Samsung’s new Series 7 entry-level 3D LED TVs and it comes with your usual array of Internet-based features, such as the ability to watch YouTube (over a wired Ethernet link or optional Wi-Fi dongle).

More importantly, for me, the C7000 provides excellent contrast and smooth, natural motion.

But first, why 55 inches? In terms of screen real estate, the Samsung 46-inchers are not a huge leap over popular 40- and 42-inchers, which are significantly cheaper (think S$1,000 to S$2,000 less). After getting the measurements of my humble apartment (about 3.6 metres wall-to-wall), I decided to go for the bigger screen.

With Samsung’s ultra-thin wall-mount, the 2.65cm skinny screen is a mere 3cm from the wall and is literally hung like a painting using a thin but strong steel cable. This means the screen doesn’t look big at all, even in a living room that is typical of a three-bedroom apartment in Singapore.

Now, after a month with C7000, I am glad I went with the 55-incher. HD videos – whether they are in broadcast TV’s 1080i or Blu-ray’s 1080p – all look sharp. Surprisingly, SD videos look great too, possibly because my C7000 is hooked up to a Denon AVR-2310 that does a little upscaling to keep things looking sharp and in focus.

The dynamic contrast, which enables very deep blacks, and the vibrancy of colours are what attracted me to the C7000 at the showroom. One step down was the C6900, which I also liked, but which comes with a less aggressive sports/action mode (Clear Motion 4o0 versus the C7000′s Clear Motion 600) and no 3D.

In the end, the C7000 caught my eye, and I just had to have it after looking at it for half a day at Audio House. After all, I’d been quite impressed by Samsung’s excellent B7000, which I reviewed last year.

Like the older model, the eye candy in movies such as Avatar (non-3D) and Pearl Harbor is very impressive on the new C7000.

If you prefer the theatre experience, dim the lights and run the Movie mode on the TV. This way, the screen’s a little dimmer and “yellow” in colour temperature, replicating what you see in the cinema.

I personally prefer something with more impact and punch, so the C7000′s Dynamic mode does it for me with the extra brightness and contrast. And no, even after a couple of movies like Terminator Salvation and Pearl Harbor, the eyes don’t tire. They want more.

Blacks really look black, even when compared to LG’s excellent SL90 series from last year (which I considered as an alternative to the Samsungs). And how fast motion is portrayed can also be easily adjusted, whether you prefer the “computer-like” super-sharp/in-focus feel or one that seems more “natural”, so there’s no argument on whether the details are too soft or hard.

What impresses me too are the colours, which really come alive in a movie like Avatar. Here, you never fail to get a good sense of the beauty – and savagery – of Pandora because you are easily drawn into its multi-coloured world.

Details are extremely fine as well. You tend to take more seriously Colonel Quaritch’s safety brief early in the Avatar movie, when you see the battle scars etched on his skull in a stark close-up.

Of course, the C7000 is far from perfect. Quite a few folks on AV forums have complained about backlight bleed issues, especially at the edges where they could see “clouds” forming in place of a solid colour. I personally have not seen this, so either I am lucky or I have not been concentrating hard enough to find the problem.

Plus, some serious video buffs are still a little underwhelmed and are looking to the more precise dimming offered by the more expensive Samsung C8000 and C9000 (going at a cool S$12,888). But those models were surely out of my budget.

For me, a bigger issue I had with the C7000, until recently, was HDMI sync’ing problems with my Denon AVR. With my old Samsung 40-inch LCD, I could turn on my devices in any order and things would just sync up and I’d get sound and video within a second or two.

With the C7000, I actually had to apply a software patch from Samsung to solve persistent sync’ing problems, which a number of Onkyo AVR users have also raised. This mostly solved the problem, even though the occasional failure to sync still happened until I found a workaround.

The simplest way to ensure everything works is to turn on my AVR and source (StarHub set-top box, Sony Playstation 3 or HTPC) before turning on the TV. With this, I’ve never had a problem.

Since I’m at it, here’s another tip for fellow C7000 users. This is for folks running a set-up like mine  - I know there are lots of you out there who bought a Denon AVR in the past year and also use a Sony Playstation 3 as a Blu-ray player.

When playing Blu-ray movies, I had problems sync’ing a character’s dialogue with his lip movements, possibly because I’ve turned on the motion-enhancement settings on the C7000.

To get past this, try setting the Denon AVR’s audio delay to match the video on your Blu-rays. I set mine to more than 100ms and the problem went away immediately. I don’t see anymore out-of-sync lips now.

On the whole, the C7000 has been a big leap over my previous TV. With a list price of over S$6,000 (I got it cheaper after trading in my 3D glasses and 3D Blu-ray player), it had better be.

To be honest, I’m not blown away by the newfangled 3D feature. Going by shop demos, some content are hit-and-miss when upmixed by the TV’s 2D-to-3D converter.

But on regular 2D TV, I’m pretty impressed by the C7000. Great contrast and excellent colours make it an impressive screen for Blu-ray movies and even everyday pay-TV content. Well worth checking out if you are looking for a slim LED TV that packs in the goodies.

Needless to say, the price includes all sorts of stuff you may or may not need. Among the more practical, there’s what Samsung calls “800 Clear Motion Rate”, its top-end blur-reduction technology to keep things focused in those fast action movies.

The other big thing about this 3D-enabled TV: it’s just 7.98-mm thick with a built-in digital tuner, making it one of the slimmest, if not the slimmest, among anorexic LED TVs out there. The simple, brushed aluminium finish is one of the best I’ve seen of late.

Then there’s a nifty touch-screen remote that streams what you are watching on the big screen on its little 3-inch colour display. There’s even a headphone jack for plugging in ear buds on the remote, if you choose to ignore what’s going on the big screen. Sounds excessive? Sure. But cool? Definitely.

What about picture quality for the C9000? I’m not sure if it’s a great leap forward over the  cheaper C7000 and C8000, which already offer excellent contrast and realistic colours for Blu-ray titles. Certainly, when I saw the screens at Samsung’s launch earlier this year, all three looked superb.

The C7000 did have some problems with 3D, which may users did not like, so I certainly hope the more expensive C9000 solves the problem.

I’m personally not big on 3D movies, but one area that might seem interesting is games. It’s not fantasy – recently, I noticed my Sony Playstation 3 actually supports upcoming 3D games (via a firmware update).

Connected to my C7000 via HDMI, it detected that the TV supported 3D and promptly readied the feature when such games come onboard, reportedly in the later part of this year. The C9000 should plug in similarly with a PS3 as well.

So, if you are already interested, and have the deep pockets, for this svelte beauty, here are more inducements for you to burst your credit card limit:

1) Free Samsung BD-C6900 3D Blu-ray player (worth S$799), as well as two pairs of adult-sized rechargeable 3D glasses and two pairs of child-sized rechargeable 3D glasses (worth S$796).

2) Premium concierge service, giving “tailored installation”, along with integration with users’ existing AV setup, PLUS, get this, a tutorial on how to use the TV for the entire family.

Tutorial for everyone? It’s a little rich for me to be honest. But hey, if you’re paying that kind of money for a TV, you do get your perks, even if they are a little OTT.

“Usually the June show is quieter than the March event, because people have already used up all their bonus money from the Chinese New Year,” said a PC hardware distributor friend, when I met him at the PC Show today.

Sure enough, if you walk around this quarter’s IT bazaar at Suntec City, which runs until this Sunday, you’d notice that there aren’t the usual big Sony booth or telecom operators taking up entire sections of a floor. These guys are still at PC Show today, but the show just seems smaller than the one in March.

So, what are the bargains?

LED TVs galore

The LG Infinia series of high-end, near-borderless LED TVs that I’ve been eyeing for a while now are finally hitting the show stands. Problem is, the best price I’ve been quoted is about S$5,700 for a 47-incher. Nice as it is, and with 3D feature which I don’t need, that’s a crazy price to pay. The next best LG – the older but still excellent SL90 is sold at S$2,800 for a similar 47-inch size.

At Audio House earlier this week, I even saw the price go down to S$2,400 (S$800 off the usual price)  if you charge the purchase to your DBS credit card (subject to you spending S$18,000 a year on the card).

And there are other new LED TV models from Samsung which are pretty impressive as well. A similar model from Samsung, the UA46C5000 46-incher, is going for S$2,799. Normal price is about S$3,000.

If you don’t need such a big screen, the popular 40-inch size comes with good bargains too. Samsung’s LA40C530, a 40-inch Full HD LCD (not LED-enabled, so not so thin) is going for an attractive S$999. TVs offer some of the best deals at shows like the PC Show, because the savings are usually in the hundreds of dollars.

Core i3, i5 and i7 laptops rule

Basically, old Core 2 Duo laptops are now in the sub-S$1,000 range, like with Compaq’s Presario CPQ321. Pay a bit more – from about S$1,300 – and you get a newer Core i5 chip in your next laptop. Even more, say, S$1,599 for HP’s Pavilion dv3-4036TX, and you get a zippy Core i7 processor.

Intel’s new chips are pushing into mainstream notebooks and the prices are indeed attractive.

Western Digital My Passport Elite

For just S$10 more than the regular WD Passport portable drive, you can buy the nifty My Passport Elite 500GB at S$119.90, which to me a good deal. Not just a nicer finish and a dock, the Elite version comes with encryption for your data when you carry them around. I bought one to backup my corporate data. One of the deals of the show.

Telcos

No spectacularly solid deals from these folks when I was checking out the SingTel, StarHub and M1 booths, which were all out in force at PC Show this week. In fact, SingTel recommends that you buy online and get the phone shipped to you instead of queueing at the show – good advice!

What makes me happy though is that StarHub has boosted speeds for its cable modem service by about two times. Its 8Mbps service will now offers 16Mbps max, while the 12Mbps will support up to 30Mbps. Sign up for a two-year deal and you get a free HP Pro Book laptop (with the 30Mbps service) or a free Lenovo netbook (with the 16Mbps service).

Finally, one note of caution if you are driving there. Get there early – maybe an hour or two – before the show starts at noon. I was there today at 10.30am and the carpark around the convention area was already almost filled up. By the time I left at 3pm, the carpark was full.

Tell us what you bought at the show!

Apparently yes, especially if there’s money to be made off tech-crazy Singaporeans.

It’s not a gaming-themed show like last year’s Licence2Play, but the Singapore Great Electronics Sale 2010 this weekend at Suntec city (9th to 11th April) was supposed to be about 3D-TVs. Even though it is not, it drew in 30,000 people on the first day.

The event, which took up one convention hall on the 6th floor at Suntec, turned out to be a pretty meh experience for me.

Besides a few tech vendors like Samsung, LG, Panasonic and AudioHouse, the event was full of non-tech booths. DBS credit cards, crystal fengshui stuff and spa massages were some of the booths I spotted in my quick tour around the hall. It was an eclectic mess.

One of the more interesting booths I spotted was by Joco People, a niche shop selling toy cameras from Japan. The cameras cost around S$49 per camera for those displayed in the picture. Joco People’s website doesn’t sem to be up yet, but they seem to operate more via Facebook, and you can find more about them on their FB page.

Another interesting booth was selling powerballs, which was advertised as the world’s strongest sport gyroscope. It literally “explodes with mind numbing inertial forces” and can be used for strength training and rehabilitation of injuries for the wrist and arm, according to the official Powerball website. From athletes to musicians, the powerball can be used for “sports, hobbies or pastimes”, and can generate up to 40 pounds of resistance.

I tried it. You’re supposed to rotate your wrist whilst the Powerball’s gyroscope is spinning (which I was trying to do in the photo above, although that might not be clear), which creates resistance and tones your arm.

It’s a cute toy, but I doubt it will be part of my gym or sport regiment soon. And it ain’t cheap either. The 250Hz Classic in my hand cost S$39.90. There were a lot of folks gawking and trying out the powerball for its niche novelty, but I wonder how many folks actually bought the toy/training device. If you’re interested, the Singapore powerball website is here.

After some wandering, I finally spotted something I could wholeheartedly indulge in: A PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox games booth. The prices are slightly cheaper than the usual Funan prices, and that is PS3 Bioshock at S$29.90 and FF XIII (English) for S$69.90. As a PC gamer, I spotted the PC Mass Effect 2 going for S$49.90. Not a bad deal.

In summary, I would say that this Great Electronics Sale, compared to the IT Show that was just over in March, is a little underwhelming in terms of choice and range of IT products. If you went there for a dedicated gadget-hunting trip, it’s probably not worth it. But if you were in the vicinity and popped by (like I did), it might be fun for all the random weird stuff.

Get ready to put on your 3D glasses and watch Wayne Rooney leap up in 3D to score his latest headed goal. If electronics behemoth Samsung is to be believed, you will be watching 3D programmes that seem to jump off the screen instead of the current flat images we have known for decades.

So confident is the Korean firm that it will launch more than 20 TVs featuring the 3D feature this year. The first models, demo’d today at a regional showcase of its entire line of electronics, will go on sale here in Singapore this month.

Most of the 3D TV models will be out by 2Q 2010, and will include LED, LCD and plasma TV screens.

“We are not offering 3D as a niche product,” said Samsung’s strategic marketing director Irene Ng at the event today. “We believe 3D will be everywhere.”

Though the Samsung show also included cameras, e-books and even washing machines, the star was clearly the new line of TVs from Samsung, which is no. 1 here for TVs here.

Samsung’s big-bang announcement comes just a week after Sony unveiled its own 3D TV sets here. Sony’s Bravia LX900 will go on sale in the middle of this year.

Just how good is 3D? Well, if you have watched Avatar in 3D, you will know that properly-created videos can create a new level of suspension of disbelief. In Avatar 3D, it’s hard to forget the thrill when creatures leap at you from screen.

You can see attempts to replicate some of that on Samsung’s screens today. Yes, there is some semblance of “depth” with these upcoming 3D TV sets. A rock band’s frontman does seem a little more forward than his band members, and you do see football players leap up in the air more realistically.

But to be fair, viewing things on a big screen, in a dark theatre, is always something that you’ll struggle to replicate at home with a 3D TV. Then, there is the content, which is ramping up, but will still take time.

Yes, the Arsenal-Manchester United match was recently shown in 3D, but you need a lot more content than that to make me stick on a pair of gawky-looking 3D glasses for two hours.

Still, it’s good to see how far 3D TV have come. I remember playing a Quake 3 Arena game at a Philips lab at Eindhoven several years back and telling myself: this is either going to be one sick piece of technology or it’s going to make me sick donning those glasses.

Today, the jury is still out. But we are surely moving towards 3D TV on the mass market. And I suspect a lot of Samsung’s initial 3D TV buyers will buy them for their looks rather than 3D.

The new C9000 LED TV, for example, is only as thick as a pencil. Yes, we can literally say its pencil thin. It’s not the thinnest around (LG holds that record now), but with a silver bezel, the new range from Samsung stands out well against the black-framed models we are so used to now.

Beyond looks, the C9000 impresses too with a bundled remote controller that not only has the usual wireless wizardry, but doubles up as a second screen.

In other words, you can stream another channel, via Wi-Fi, onto the remote even as you are watching the big screen. I can imagine watching two football matches at the same time with this setup, which requires that you stream the second video via a separate but standard Wi-Fi router.

The remote, which also works with other high-end Samsung TVs, is sold separately as well. But the asking price of US$350 is hefty – it could well net you a low-end TV these days. Also, get ready to charge your remote often if you fire up that Wi-Fi link all the time.

You can actually walk through the halls without squeezing past sweaty people – well, in most parts – at this year’s Comex show at Suntec City.

At nearby Raffles City, there was even ample parking – many empty lots – at about 6pm on Friday when I visited this year’s third quarterly computer and electronics bazaar.

So, what are the good deals that Techgoondu recommends you check out? I’d say the usual stuff were in store – large-screen TVs and portable hard disks – but there were one of two surprises, like Audio Technica’s headphones.

Deals to check out at Comex 2009:

1. Philips 42PFL7482 LCD TV

Despite the lelong and shouting at nearby booths, this little gem of a 42-inch Full HD LCD TV caught my eye at a quiet Audio House corner booth.

Claiming to be the “cheapest in Comex”, this 1080p screen goes for only S$899 – a steal in my opinion. Just a few steps away, the “hourly specials” dealers were asking for S$749 for an old LG 42-inch plasma that is only HD-ready.

I expect even fiercer pricing among the dealers – which also include Mega Discount Store, Harvey Norman and other electronics retailers – as the weekend wears on. So, if you are hunting for a flat-screen TV at home, Comex is the place.

2. Audio Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC7b
These headphones offer the best bang for buck for folks who want noise-cancelling ear muffs on the plane. The one on sale at Comex – the S$318 ATH-ANC7b – is an updated version of the ATH-ANC7, which I tested in Digital Life last year and really loved.

What’s the good deal at Comex? The headphones come with a free Sansui iPod docking station – with mini speakers. I’m not a fan of most docking stations, to be honest. But this is free, and you’re already getting a good deal out on the headphones.

3. Toshiba NB200 – A101S netbook
This is one of the cheapest netbooks I found at the show – Toshiba’s Atom N280-based machine going for just S$629. Nothing fancy here: it comes with standard Windows XP Home Edition, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of hard disk space.

However, the 10.1-incher weighs just 1.18kg and has an excellent keyboard (how did they fit in the spaces between the keys?) Most important of all, this machine is really cheap for a second portable to bring on the road.

4.Western Digital WD TV Mini Media Player
This really drew the crowds to a booth on the 6th floor at Suntec. The little player basically lets you hook up any USB hard disk and play back music and movies onto your TV or AV system at home. It even does MOV and Real Media (RM and RMVB) movie files and supports subtitles (in the popular SRT and other formats).

Again, the main attraction is the price – S$119.90 – which is cheaper than Seagate’s Free Agent Theater that supports only its own portable hard disks. If you buy the WD TV Mini, you can also opt to bundle a 2.5-inch 320GB WD Elements hard drive for an additional S$80 (usual price S$89.90). Good deal.

5. MSI GT628 gaming notebook
Okay, not everyone can afford a S$4,000 Alienware notebook. The next option is MSI’s GT series notebooks for gamers. Thankfully, MSI has done away with some of the really ugly bling we saw on Toshiba’s Qosmio multimedia notebooks, and kept the style understated.

The 15-inch GT628 comes with enough horsepower for many games today – an Intel quad-core Q9000, Nvidia’s GeForce GTS 160M graphics card, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 500GB hard disk storage space – for S$2,888. Decent price for decent hardware.

Other happenings:
1. The Xbox trade-in is still ongoing, despite a sign at the booth that says only the first 100 trade-ins will get a good deal. Just ask the staff at the Microsoft booth.

2. D-Link’s DIR-825 – the budget-based, more practical version of the DIR-855 – is going for S$229. Without an OLED screen and with one less antenna, the much-awaited dual-band Wirelss N router is cheaper than the top dog DIR-855, which goes for S$299.

Sweaty crowds, loudspeakers and lelong prices. What else would you expect from the latest quarterly IT bazaar happening at Suntec City from today to Sunday, right?

Crowds at the ongoing PC Show seem thinner than the previous IT Show in March, perhaps due to the fears over the H1N1 swine flu, or maybe the bleak economy is finally getting to some folks. Sony, noticeably, did not turn up with a bang as before – there were no Level 2 booths you’ve come to see at Suntec City.

Still, there are bargains to be had. And here are my own few Goondu recommendations.

1. LG 32-inch HD-ready TV (S$499)
With 37- and 40-inchers going for as low as $899, the smaller screens are obviously free-falling in price. One deal I saw at the LG booth was an HD-ready 32-incher with a built-in terrestial DTV tuner going for a mere S$499.

Just a few shows ago, 32-inchers went for S$799 and they were not even HD-ready. At this price, this LG TV is great for a second TV in the bedroom, or for your console games.

2. Toshiba 42AV550E HD-ready TV (S$1,099)
By the time you head down to the show, this might be going for even cheaper, perhaps due to the competition in the halls. But still, a 42-inch HD-ready TV for about S$1,000 is a not a shabby deal. I saw this at AudioHouse, which have a few other Toshiba TVs on offer too.

3. Linksys Wireless N WRT610N router bundle (S$308 with USB stick)
I’ve been a D-Link fan for a while, but finally switched back to Linksys today. Yes, I bought the WRT610N router, which offers simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, which is great for me as I am getting swamped by these nasty SingTel 2Wire routers blasting their 2.4GHz signals into my apartment.

Considering that the D-Link DIR855 is still too expensive (S$299), I thought about buying a cheaper WRT320N (S$169), which could do only 5GHz or 2.4GHz at one time, which is fine because I wanted to keep my old D-Link DGL-4300 router as a 2.4GHz router and run the WRT320N as a 5GHz-only access point.

But in the end, I was seduced by the considerably cheap offer from Linksys – a S$308 bundle for the more powerful simultaneous dual-band WRT610N + a WUSB600N USB stick. I’m going fully 5GHz now for my laptop and my wife’s laptop. The PDA goes on 3.5G!

4. Dell Studio XPS 435 (about S$1,999, depending on config)
Silly Dell did not bring any Alienware gaming notebooks on show, despite launching the much-vaulted brand in Singapore recently. However, it did bring the nice Studio XPS desktops, which were huge full-tower PCs with a nice reflective finish at the front. Chio!

5. XFX ATI HD4870x2 graphics card (S$539)
The guy at the XFX booth said that there’s only one of these king-of-the-hill graphics cards going for a whopping S$200+ off the regular Sim Lim Square price (about S$750 – S$800). By the time you read this, it might even be gone. If you are looking at a great deal for a top-end gaming card, quickly head 0n down.

6. MSI X340 laptop (S$1,188 to S$1,388)
Forget about the Apple Macbook Air. The cheap and good laptop that you can bring everywhere comes from MSI, the lesser-known Taiwanese motherboard maker. This svelte, ultra-thin notebook (at just 6mm at its thinnest) with a 13-inch screen is really something to fall in love with.

There are two models – a S$1,388 one with Intel’s SU3500 low-power CPU, and a cheaper S$1,188 one with a slower Intel Atom Z530 CPU. Both look great in black or white. If the cheap S$588 MSI Wind netbook (the cheapest netbook around, I think) doesn’t seduce you, then the X340 notebook should do the job of parting money from your wallet.

More pix here from the show… have fun shopping and tell us what you bought!