Smart Displays

I saw the Viewsonic airPanel Smart Display at *Fry's Electronics [shudders]. Since they're still relatively new, I'll explain how they work.

Smart Displays are touch ccreen computers without most of the computer guts. It usually has an Intel XScale processor at 400 MHz. They usually have an internal ROM and RAM as well. They connect to your computer using 802.11b wireless networking, handled throught the included USB device. I have yet to find out if you can use it through, say the Linksys Wireless Router/Access Point, but I will find out what I can.

The display runs on Windows CE for Smart Displays, explaining the need for a separate processor/memory. It also has built-in USB ports, and a PC Card port as well, slick for adding things like Bluetooth or Ethernet or something. I could see some companies outfitting it with a PC Card barcode reader or something. It also has a headset port for listening to music or attaching speakers, which is slick. It's supposed to have a 5 hour battery life, which is nice because most notebooks only last 2 hours at best.

While I did not see this in action, when you tie it to your desktop PC, you can have one person using the monitor and another person logged in on the Smart Display. That would be really interesting to see. Also, it lacked the ability to switch the desktop orientation like a Tablet PC, which was a little disappointing. It does, however, have a touch screen (stylus not required but highly recommended)

ViewSonic's version comes with a free upgrade to XP Pro (required to use the display), which is to be expected seeing as how this monitor slays your wallet at $1299.

Phillips has a version with speakers and a free 88-key keyboard, which I will also consider looking at. As a developer, this one might be of better value because I can sit in my living room, prop it up on the coffee table, and code while I watch TV, harnessing the full power of my Dual Xeon monster for building apps.

I'd like to explore the technology further and see how many you can connect to one computer simultaneously. It may be a nice solution for some retail networks I am currently building. I can have one computer as my terminal, and 5 Smart Displays all connected to it running the sinple POS app (with this app, Point-Of-Sale and Piece-Of-Shit are interchangeable)

*Editorial note: I HATE Fry's Electronics. DO NOT buy computer parts there. I only use it for hard-to-find adapters, video games, and stuff like that. Don't buy computer hardware (hard drives, graphics cards, processors) there, ESPECIALLY if it has one of their "restocked" stickers on it. Their return policy is to put non-functional equipment back on the shelves.