If theres one thing I expect to see at Comdex, its the Sony pavilion filled with PCs and peripherals that make new rules for high-touch design.
Sonys near-total absence from this years Comdex floor was one of the shows jarring notes, but smaller companies such as Jetway Computer (www.jetwaycomputer.com) filled the gap with designs like the compact MiniQ 740: a fully integrated, media-oriented PC with four USB ports, a LAN port, a PCI slot, a drive bay and even S-video output, in a space the size of some table radios. (Contact the company for wholesale prices.)
Jetways motherboard designs have received favorable reviews from sites such as Toms Hardware, and this was just one of several such entertainment-cube designs that I saw in Las Vegas this year. Small-appliance pricing for PCs (or PC intelligence in affordable appliances) has finally arrived.