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Don’t try to fool me, product photos!

Computers are not pretty things. A few years back the all-in-one PC became a big thing and I feel many people were clearly misled. The pictures of the computer were sleek and untangled. The thing is, it worked! I heard people exclaim that they would love to get an all-in-one PC to do away with all these dreaded cables.Then you start plugging in your keyboard, mouse, speakers, printer, scanner, and other USB devices and all those cables are back again! Sure, you removed the PC to monitor cable and consolidated two power cables into one. You could even go wireless with your mouse and keyboard but there are still dongles and antennas.

This rant welled back up inside me today as I was looking at product photos of a flat-panel mounting arm.

There is no power cable or signal cable going to the monitor. Even the (Mac) keyboard and mouse cables are tucked under the keyboard to make it seem as svelte as possible.  There is no way you’re working!

Then, to make a child into a liar…

At least this guy has the cables running along the arm to the monitor. I’m actually tempted to buy the product because the cable management seems pretty decent. With the previous photos, I’m concerned about how it might look when the monitor is actually usable and has cables running to it.

Does anybody else notice trends like this with marketing technology that gets their goat?