Shuttle D10 barebones PC

Touchscreen technology is all the rage at the moment. Apple’s iPhone prompted a slew of touch-sensitive competitors and Microsoft has unveiled its ‘Surface’ technology that can be used to create large touchscreen systems. And now you can build a PC with its own integrated touchscreen display, thanks to Shuttle’s D10 barebones chassis.

The D10 looks much like Shuttle’s other small form factor boxes, measuring about 19cm high, 20cm wide, and 30cm deep. However, the front panel of the unit is almost entirely taken up by a 7in touch-sensitive screen (800x480 resolution) that allows you to control the PC without a keyboard or mouse.

The rest of the unit is pretty conventional. Its Intel G31 chipset and LGA775 socket will allow you to install Core 2 Duo processors right up to the E8600 running at 3.3GHz. It won’t accept the new i7 processors though, and you’re limited to 4GB of DDR2 memory. Graphics are handled by an integrated Intel GMA 3100 processor, and there’s a single ­ rather cramped ­ PCI Express x1 slot for upgrades.

Shuttle says the PCI Express slot could be used for a TV tuner or video capture card, and the D10 would be good to use as a compact media centre PC. Shuttle says one of its main target markets is for video surveillance systems, which we find a little baffling. The ability to control the D10 by touch would be perfect for playing music ­ just fire up iTunes and tap on the screen to select your music.

Using it to play video is trickier. The D10 has a VGA interface for connecting it to a large external monitor, but there’s no DVI or HDMI interface to connect it to a high-definition TV or monitor. You could upgrade the graphics card for this, but some sort of digital video output would make the D10 more useful as a media centre or home entertainment system.