Shuttle has had a solid hold on the small form factor PC market for a long time, and it is evident that Shuttle maintains this hold not only by being one of the first to offer a good, quality product in this category, but also by constantly refreshing and innovating with their products to stay viable in a market with fast-changing tastes and needs. The Shuttle D10 Digital Home PC is the latest and by far the most interesting product to come out of the Shuttle factories for a long time.

                                             The usual non-descript Shuttle facade is interrupted here by a touch screen 7" LCD.

While the box that the D10 comes in gives no indication of any extra features or exceptional additions to the basic Shuttle PC (even the picture up front shows three “Glamour” series shuttles with the three most common “faces” of shuttle PCs), we were told to expect something “nice” from the package, and we were not disappointed. The product inside had no resemblance at all to the three faceplates displayed on the box, as this particular D10 model has a 7” LCD touch screen embedded right onto the front fascia of the Shuttle. The same basic dimensions and shape are retained, but the front looks swanky enough to merit putting this new shuttle into a brand-new division within the shuttle line, all by its lonesome – “Digital Home”.

                                             At first glance, the D10 simply seems devoid of any kind of intake vents or connection ports - once turned on though, the 7" LCD reveals its full glory.

                                           Seven inches may not sound much, but on a diminutive frame like the Shuttle D10's, the LCD looks huge.

Before we delve further into this defining feature, let’s take a look at what components back up this amazing feature:  an Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 running at 2.53GHz, a single stick of DDR2 800MHz memory (2 slots are available), Integrated GMA 3100 graphics with 128MB (shared with main memory), 80GB of storage space, and a DVD writer branded AOpen. These are the main components; most of the other features are motherboard-derived, which means we have a pretty good list of features courtesy of Intel’s G33. This includes the aforementioned dual memory slots, 2 SATA sockets (unfortunately fully occupied by the two storage devices mentioned above), an IDE connector, and 2 USB headers (one is occupied by a single-row USB connector for the front-mounted LCD).

                                            The left-side view of the opened case. Note the tiny clearance between most components. The 2nd pic shows us a good idea of the size of the cooling apparatus relative to the size of the casing - it has to be oversized to support thehigh-end E7200. The 3rd pic gives a view of the 2 internal USB headers.

Other connectors include a single PCI-E x1 connector (too bad, since there is only a very limited number of components that uses the x1 slot – a legacy PCI slot would have been a better fit for this product), while rear connections include some useful connections like 4 USB slots, a legacy serial connector, 2 PS/2 sockets, VGA-out, 3 sound jacks, and the requisite 10/100 LAN connector. The processor deserves special mention, as the E7200 is a relatively new processor built on the 45nm process and runs at 1066MHz FSB, with 3MB of L2 cache – quite a step up from the expected budget-minded processor usually found in small form factor PCs like this.

                                            A right-side view of the PC. SFFs are difficult to upgrade for obvious reasons, not helped by the "just enough"PSU seen in the 2nd pic. The view from the top shows just how crowded it is inside.

The touch screen LCD makes use of the “Touchkit” touch screen software utility made by eMPIA Technology Inc., and includes the usual shortcut controls for easy on-screen manipulation of your desktop and applications (tap once, twice for normal left click, tap and hold for a second or less for right click), although there are no unique “gestures” that can be used – understandable as this is hardly a multi-touch capable device (or at least not yet). For a 7” screen, 800 x 600 is quite high, although it does tend to make icons a tad small. Hardware controls include a menu button with two adjustment keys labeled plus and minus. The OSD is basic, with adjustments for color, contrast, brightness, and the OSD color and language. More interestingly, the Intel GMA 3100 allows for “extended” display mode, similar to Nvidia’s DualView option which separates two displays into separate, configurable screens, without “stretching” the desktop.  In other words, it doubles your workspace. There is also an option to use the on-board LCD by itself, or turn it off altogether and use an external display.  Performance is good, with 720p video running lag-free, although the on-board LCD seems to have a dot-pitch that’s a bit too far apart – perhaps a consequence of its touch screen capability.

                                              The rear panel looks decidedly old-school, with HDMI, DVI, e-SATA, firewire absent, while a legacy serial connector is conspicuously present. The tiny fan to the left in the 1st picture cools the PSU.

The flexible nature of this setup, courtesy of the GMA display driver and Shuttle’s implementation of its touch screen gives the user a lot of possible display options, especially important since this product is meant for handling media. In spite of the measly 80GB of storage (which can be upgraded anyway), media work is easy to handle, especially if in the context of the Shuttle D10 as a living-room device. The Shuttle D10 is a handsome enough device, but aside from the screen which gives the device the whole “interactive” look, there is not much more to differentiate the D10 from most of Shuttle’s other releases in the past years – a shame.

                                            The cooling heatsink is topped by a transparent fan - but I miss the heatpipe solution Shuttle usually offers.

                                              The single additional expansion option is a seldom-used PCI-E x1.

                                             Double DIMM slots is good news, while an additional IDE connector, whilea good idea, won't have any other space in the casing for it - unless you remove an existing SATA drive.

                                              The included bundle is kind of cheesy, but still useful.

The touch screen found front-and-center on this shuttle gives it a lot of points in the looks department, and its utility has a lot of untapped potential, especially for tweaker, multi-taskers and the like. Yet the rest of the D10 looks unchanged from previous models, so much so that I found myself wishing for some more exposed nuts or additional connectos in front to make it look a bit more adventurous. Understandably, since the D10 is designed to be placed in many locations which require “discrete” looks and clean lines, it cannot stray too far from the norm. Lastly, with its powerful internals that starts with the Core 2 Duo E7200 and is bracketed by the multiple connectivity options of the G33 chipset, the D10 is sure to lure many a casual PC user into taking advantage of this shuttle’s unique capabilities, while getting the chance to use something as high-tech looking as an on-board touch screen LCD.

                                              The extra items bundled with the glamorous D10. Hey, it's good stuff for the money.

                                              The packaging gives absolutely no indication of the 7" LCD screen - these are generic "Shuttle" boxes.