Comments on: Cannon Multimedia PC: Design Over Usability

By: Houman

Houman — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:12:51 +0000

28 in 1 media reader and the fact it runs Windows, makes it clear winner in my book… I’m putting my Apple TV and Wii up for sale on eBay. Especially since
neither Apple nor Nintendo has any clue on how to design things properly.

By: Jay Tuley

Jay Tuley — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:19:26 +0000

“Except who the hell designed it?”

They thawed out the same designers that put oven knobs OVER the oven burners.

By: bbum

bbum — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:50:03 +0000

I agree about permanent connections… and I don’t think a keyboard/mouse/camera/external drive would be permanent.

By: Jeffrey J Hoover

Jeffrey J Hoover — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:45:06 +0000

Bill-

I think that more permanent peripherals would be plugged into the back and the front would be for temporary camera cards, usb drives, FW drives, etc.

See the close up http://www.cannonpc.com./ex-zoom4.html (not sure why it’s silver) ex-zoom3 shows the case back with holes for other usb and fw ports.

The headphone/mic jacks are still above the touchscreen, but I don’t think those ports are meant for long term use.

By: bbum

bbum — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:13:10 +0000

The screen quite clearly slides into the unit and folds into it. You can see the tracks along which it slides near the top of the little bay.

Even if the screen is removable, it is still wired to the unit unless they also came up with wireless screen casting technology that is both HD resolution and can do touch communication. Looking at the inside pictures, it is pretty clear they didn’t do that. So… you have a wire between the screen and the unit? That would totally suck. I bet that screen is not removable.

That it is rack mountable is irrelevant. Or, not so much, it means that any cabling out the front is likely to be that much more permanent and/or it’ll be that much less likely that you’ll have a convenient spot to set a camera / keyboard / mouse while using said peripherals.

By: Jeffrey J Hoover

Jeffrey J Hoover — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:47:03 +0000

It does look like the screen folds up. I think it’s just the touch screen and that you’d hook the whole thing up to a larger display/TV. BTW- for scale, it says that the touch screen is 12″ and the whole thing can be rack mounted.

The port placement is pretty dumb. I *hope* that there are other USB ports on the rear.

More picts (including the shell with no guts!) at http://www.cannonpc.com./ex.html

By: michael

michael — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:43:01 +0000

“Anything that sticks out at all from any of those “front IO” ports is going to obscure the screen!”

The screen is clearly not attached in that picture; it is merely leaning against the unit. That the unit is rack mountable should make this pretty obvious.