If the customer really were king and had the pick of the bunch, then the decision would naturally fall in favor of a mini or a micro PC. But, in reality, the customer is anything but a pampered monarch, and so must be content with one of the various compromises on offer. The informed observer quickly realizes that the PC market doesn't have the courage to come up with new ideas - and, in particular, more compact forms. The current sales slump cannot be assigned only to the weak economy as a whole. Now, as before, discounters still offer unlovingly thrown-together, hospital-gray crates at dubious prices, presumably in the hopes of at least making the same sales as the previous year. All the same, that gives them acceptable margins on sinking unit turnover. The trend, though, has finally broken out of the stable: PC systems are getting more compact, and the final goodbye to the 8-by-15 gray box is just waiting to happen.
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