Monday, October 6, 2003 |
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Feature |
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TRENDS
PC looks get a makeover
A
final death knell for boring computers housed in bland metal cases may
be years away, but a group of up-and-comers is ushering in a new breed
of small, stylish models that look just at home in the living room as
the office.
Many of those newcomers
were on show in Taiwan at Computex, the world’s third-biggest PC trade
fair, in the last week of September, with models cased in racy cartoon
covers, plexiglass and miniature frames beckoning the design conscious.
"Being stylish and
being digital is a theme," said Sherry Wang, a sales manager at
Micro-Star International, whose Mega PC looks more like a mini hi-fi
than a computer, thanks to a front that incorporates a radio tuner and
liquid crystal display.
For Shuttle, an innovator
of compact PCs, the new trend has been a wild success. Its XPC range of
toaster-sized models are available with casings made from shiny metal
and plexiglass in a range of colours and designs.
Part of the idea is to let
users customise their computers, said James Chang, system development
director. "We can change the chassis covers and even the front
panel," he said.
Chang said Shuttle is
selling about 50,000 XPCs a month and orders are strong heading into the
holiday season.
Since their introduction
last year, compact PC sales have grown to half of the company’s
revenues and about 70 per cent of its profits. It previously
concentrated on making computer motherboards.
Analysts expect Shuttle’s
net profits to soar to T$700.5 million ($20.8 million) this year from
T$288 million in 2002, a view that has helped its shares more than
double year-to-date.
Goldman Sachs analyst
Henry King said compact PC sales will probably account for less than
five per cent of the 100-110 million desktop PCs that will be sold this
year. But he predicted the market share could grow to double digits
within five years.
"The trend is
definitely to try to downsize the PC," he said. "After Shuttle
has been successful in this segment, other motherboard makers are
following."
While Apple Computer’s
mould-breaking iMac computers aimed to bring fresh design to the mass
market, compact PCs are so far appealing to niches: students short of
space, a hard core that needs something small enough to lug to a PC game
party, and people who just think big is ugly.
"You don’t want a
big, heavy PC sitting in your living room," said Marc Yang, an
official of Gigabyte Technology, which is selling a compact PC with
hi-fi style controls.
These computers look
positively overweight, however, alongside the EZgo, a PC that is about
the size of a Walkman CD player and weighs just under a kilogram.
"It’s the smallest,
lightest PC in the world right now," claimed Denny Chen of EZgo’s
manufacturer, Atoz Technology. Chen said the computer could be mounted
in the back seats of cars and cabs, in golf carts and in store kiosks.
The new designs have had
to overcome a range of technical issues. Chang of Shuttle said excessive
noise and heat and potential performance problems raised problems that
would not be present with larger boxes.
Transparent-cased models
also failed to block electromagnetic waves that could potentially
interfere with phone and radio waves in the home or office, he said.
"Transparent is good
to look at, but it has some issues," he said.
Chen said heat was a
problem for Atoz’s super small computers, especially since the faster
the CPU the greater the heat given off.
"Thermal is always a
problem with compact PCs," he said. — Reuters
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